Black and Blue
by delcoy483
Summary: Things aren't always as they seem. At first, this girl, Jamie, hates her life in Erudite and wants to move, thinking she has a voice of where to go, but then something goes wrong. Her test doesn't work. After that, things just keep getting crazier. Now Jeanine plans something unthinkable, and no one can escape it. *No language *No explicit content
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

 **Jamie POV**

As I look around my room, I realize, this could be the last full day I spend in Erudite. I hate it, and I'm getting out of here… hopefully. I may hate it, but everything we've been taught is still in there, especially the concept of "trusting the test". If the test tells me to stay in Erudite, I guess I'll stay. I love my family, and I love learning new things every day, but I can't stand Jeanine. She's basically torturing the Abnegation until she finds a way to take them over. Apparently, I'm the only Erudite to feel that way though. Everyone else, even my family, absolutely worships her. I have to get out of here.

"Jamie, Alex, are you guys coming? It's about time to go."

"Coming!", my brother and I say at the same time. I guess the twin brain connection never breaks off, even after sixteen years.

On our way to take the aptitude test, I just keep thinking of all the factions, trying to figure out where to go. I'm willing to take a stand for the Abnegation, but I'm not so sure I'd fit in there. I'm not exactly the most humble person in the world. You know, Candor wouldn't be too bad, and I've been known to be too honest at times. I've also heard that sarcasm fits in very well there. The more I think about it, the more Candor sounds like the best choice for me. Telling the truth all the time seems like it would be pretty hard, but I think I could do it. Yeah… yeah I think that's the one.

"You ready?", my brother says, shaking me from my thoughts.

"Huh?"  
"I said, are you ready?", he says as he points to the building.

"Yeah, I guess. I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"Yep."

Once they are done explaining what the test does and what it's for, they start to call us back for the test. When about two thirds of the people are finished with their test, I hear them call for Alex. He'll get Erudite, easily. If he got anything else, I would honestly have them check for system errors.

"Jamie Sanders."

I get up, and walk towards the door. The woman leading me back to the testing room is in Candor clothing. Tomorrow evening, I'll be sitting in the Candor compound, in the same colors.

She opens the third door in the hallway, and I go in. The room is very plain, with mirrored walls and a white floor. The only thing in it are a table with a computer on it, a white chair that looks a bit like one you would see in the dentist's office, and a Dauntless woman at the computer, holding a cup of blue liquid. As I sit down, I can feel my hands shaking. I shouldn't be nervous, but I am.

"My name is Tori, I will be administering your test today. Once you drink this, you will go into a simulation, your reactions to the events in the simulation will determine what faction would fit you best."

I just nod, and cringe when I swallow the liquid. It's disgusting. I open my eyes and look around to see that I'm still in the testing room, but Tori and the desk are gone. I look and see my reflection in a mirror, and it speaks. Okay, this is definitely a simulation, reflections don't speak.

"Choose." is all it says, and it points to a plate with two things on it: a knife and a piece of meat. I turn back around to the reflection.

"Why? What do I need these for?"

I hear a loud bark, and turn around to see that the knife and the meat are gone, and that the bark came from a very large dog, wolf more like, at the other end of the room. So that's what I needed those for. That would've been nice to know. If I had been smart, I would've grabbed them both just in case. I look the dog dead in the eyes as it starts to run towards me. I was raised in Erudite, I know how simulations work. They feel real, I will feel the pain, but when I wake up, it won't be there. I can take this.

I stand there, waiting for the dog to attack, and at the last second, I close my eyes. I feel something pawing at my foot. I look down, and there's a little puppy sitting at my feet, I guess in place of the monster dog. I bend down to pet it, when I hear a small voice behind me.

"Puppy!"

I look, and there's a little girl in Erudite clothing. Wait, no, that's me when I was little. I then hear a growl and see that the puppy has returned to its original state. The dog is now looking at the girl, and she starts to run. As soon as she moves, it follows her. At this point, I know that I should save her, but I'm also still aware that this is just a simulation, she isn't real and neither is the dog. Even so, I still run after them and tackle the dog.

I sit straight up in my chair and look around. I'm in the room still, but Tori, the desk and the computer are there now. The simulation must be over.

"You've got to be kidding me, two in one day?", she mutters, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

"Two? Of what?"

"You need to go. Now. Your brother was here earlier, don't wait on him, don't say a word to your family. If anyone asks, your result was Erudite."

"Wait, what? What's going on?", I ask, even though I already know. I have been under Jeanine's teachings my entire life, I know how to recognize a Divergent. She's told us they're dangerous. Personally, I never believed that, they're just people, the same as the rest of us. Whenever they find a Divergent, it isn't because they've done something bad, it's because they were weeded out by the test.

"Tori, what was my result?", I look her straight in the eyes. She hesitates before speaking.

"Results. There were more than one."

"Okay, what were they?"

"Candor, Erudite, and Dauntless."

I knew it. I knew I was right, but I still had to hear it from her. Divergent. I'm Divergent.

"Wait, but if I tell them I'm Erudite, they'll expect me to stay. If I move, they'll know something's up. Erudite always trust the test, they never move unless the test says otherwise."

"Ok, fine. You have to choose now. Whatever you tell them, is what you pick tomorrow. Just don't get caught. You don't want to know what they'll do to you."

I don't ask anymore questions, I know she's right. I have to go, and, until tomorrow, I have to think and act like an Erudite. They can't know that anything happened with my test, especially where I'm at.

I start home, doing exactly as Tori tells me and not waiting for my brother. He still sees me and follows me out anyways.

"Hey, you good?"

"Yeah I'm fine," I wrap my arms around my stomach, "they sent me home as soon as I was done. It made me sick, my administrator told me she didn't want me puking in front of anybody who hadn't been through the test yet. Might make them nervous."

He just nods and keeps walking with me. I look at him, and his face shows no sign of suspicion.

"Did you at least get to finish your test?"

"Yeah."

"Well, what'd you get?"  
Crap. I want to say Candor. I know I can't stay in Erudite, they'll definitely figure me out there, and I didn't want to stay in the first place. There's only one reason that I can't go to Candor. I can tell the truth all the time, unless they ask about one thing: Divergence. If they ask and I lie, they will know. They can tell when people are lying, it's part of their job. Erudite and Candor could, quite literally, be the death of me. I have to choose Dauntless, it's the only one left.

"Hey, are you going to answer?"

"Yeah, sorry, I thought I was going to throw up." he steps back a bit

"Ok, so what was your result?"

"Dauntless."

"Wait, seriously?"

"Yeah, I know, I was surprised too. I guess with how we've been raised, I haven't had a chance to show any of my Dauntless traits, but during the test, it just flowed."

I look at him again, seeing shock, but still no sign of suspicion. I hate lying to my brother, we've been together since birth, he's my twin, but I have to. If I want to live, I have to play this off until I finally get away from it all tomorrow at the choosing ceremony.

"So what'd you get? Erudite?"

"Yep. Did you really think I could get anything else though?"

"No. If you did, I'd be worried."

He laughed, and we walked home together. I'm still worried that someone will figure me out, but there's a much less chance of it in Dauntless. At least, much less than Erudite or Candor.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

 **Jamie POV**

I walk with my family to the choosing ceremony. Last night, Alex and I both told our parents what our results were. They were glad to know they would at least be keeping Alex. I know they weren't just overjoyed when I told them I'd be leaving, but Dauntless and Erudite seem to be working pretty closely together these days, so they weren't upset.

We get in and sit down, and I see Will and his family come in and sit down. Will is a good friend of mine, we've grown up together. He's really smart, he would do well here, but there is something different about him. He's not quite Erudite. I look around, and then look at my parents and Alex, knowing that I won't be going home with them today, hoping that I'm making the right decision.

"May I have your attention, please?"

We all look up to the stage where the voice came from. It's the head of Abnegation, Marcus Eaton. I know that most of what Jeanine says about the Abnegation leaders isn't true, but I just have a feeling about him. I never have been comfortable when I see him around. He makes me nervous like he'll turn on me in a second. Like he's hiding a monster deep down.

"Thank you. It is now time to begin our choosing ceremony."

He starts calling names, and people start going up to the stage, cutting their hand, and choosing, dripping their blood into the bowl of the desired faction.

I zone out only a few people in. The majority of people are just staying in their original faction. The first transfer is from Dauntless. His family looks shocked, but more angry than anything. From what I've heard, that's about the only emotion they show. Well, that and pure happiness when they're doing something really stupid or really crazy.

When I hear Will's name called, I perk up just a bit, because it's finally someone I know. He cuts his hand, looks at his family and gives a short simple nod. He then holds his hand over Dauntless, and lets the blood drip, then makes his way over to them. He's the first Erudite transfer. The first transfer over all is really shocking, but the first from your faction is nearly as big. At least I won't be the first. He sort of softened my blow a little. Good thing is, I'll be seeing him again, and I won't be the only Erudite transfer in Dauntless. This brings me some relief, but I'm still a little tense in anticipation.

The next big shocker is a boy from Abnegation transferring to Erudite. Abnegation and Erudite are so hard against each other, any transfer from one to the other is very surprising. Immediately after he did that, his sister went to Dauntless. An Abnegation in Dauntless? This has got to be the craziest choosing I've ever been to.

They call my brother up, and I know I'll be next. I see him cut his hand and drip it into Erudite. As he starts his walk back up to our parents, I'm called, and I walk up to the stage, knowing most of the eyes in the room are on me.

Marcus gives me a warm smile as he hands me the knife, but the smile doesn't travel to his eyes. I still don't trust him.

I cut my hand and put it over the Dauntless bowl. I hear the blood sizzle. There's no turning back now. I hear the roar of the Dauntless, excited to have a new member and I slowly make my way over there, finding Will and taking a seat beside him.

"Hey! You excited?"

"Uh, yeah. Little scared too, but excited. I didn't figure you would stay in Erudite."

"Yeah, just a few too many rules. I knew your brother would, but I wasn't too sure about you. Didn't know if you'd follow him or change over. I actually figured you would go to Candor."

"Yeah, I was thinking about it at first, but the test gave me Dauntless. Trust the test."

Here I am, lying again. Maybe Candor wouldn't have been best for me.

As I'm sitting here thinking, I notice that the group is moving out the door. Everybody is running. Will and I get up and go with them and I see the girl from Abnegation falling behind already. I want to help her, but all we're doing is running. If she can't stand that, I don't know how she's going to survive Dauntless. I've even seen them jump on and off a moving…

"Train!"

"What?"

Will points just head of us, and some of the Dauntless born are already jumping on.

"Seriously? Less than five minutes I've been part of Dauntless, and they already want to kill me?"

Will nods and grabs my hand.

"What the heck are you doing?"

"I"m not doing this on my own. If I do it, I'm dragging you with me. Same time."

We pick up speed and jump. I close my eyes, probably not the safest thing to do, but I feel my feet hit solid ground. I open my eyes, and look at Will. We made it. We both look back out and he holds his hand out to a Candor girl who then turns and helps the girl from Abnegation. Will seems to be in a bit of a trance, still looking at the Candor. She holds her hand out to him and they shake hands.

"Hi, I'm Christina." Will just stares and nods. I roll my eyes and hold my hand out to her.

"This is Will. I'm Jamie."

"Nice to meet you."

I see the Abnegation girl sort of shying behind Christina, so I offer her my hand. She stares at it, a little wide eyed, for a second, then shakes it.

"I'm B-, uh, Tris."

"Cool. I'm Jamie." I say, smiling at her. She nods and smiles back just a little bit.

We're all just sitting here in silence when I hear a shout from the front of the train car.

"They're jumping!"

What? Again? I look at the other three and they are all wearing the same look as I am.

"Do they want to have any new members, or are they just gonna kill us all off before we get there?"

We look out the door and see a bunch of them jumping off the train onto the roof of a building. I look up at Will and back out at the roof. I back up to get a running start.

"What are you doing?"

"Jumping."

With that, I run and jump. I feel the ground meet my feet… then my knees and arms. I quickly pop up off the ground to make sure that the others got off. Will is already up and walking to me, and Christina and Tris are working their way off the ground. As we go over to the group, I hear a scream. A Dauntless girl is standing at the edge of the roof, looking down and crying. I already know what happened, I don't want to go over there and look, but I see Tris making her way over there. She turns back around and I can see a hint of tears in her eyes.

"One of the Dauntless girls. She didn't make the jump."

If one of the Dauntless born couldn't make it, I don't know how in the world I'm going to make it in Dauntless.

"Okay, listen up!"

Everyone gets quiet and looks to the person who spoke. He's a very muscular guy, I would say just a year or two older than all of us. He has tattoos covering pretty much every visible part of his body, other than his face. He has two piercings above his eyebrow, but that's about it.

"I'm Eric, one of your leaders. If you're standing here, you made it on and off the train without dying. Congrats." geez, sarcastic much? I've noticed that even all the Dauntless are staying quiet now. They all seem to be afraid of him. I'm not really afraid of him, but I don't like him. He seems cold. Just because you're brave and Dauntless doesn't mean you have to keep everyone else at bay.

"So, welcome to the second part. You see this hole?" he waves his arm in gesture to the gigantic hole behind him. "You're going to be jumping into that. You don't want to jump? Fine, you're factionless. Any questions?"

A tall boy in Candor clothing raises his hand

"Is there anything at the bottom? Like water or something?"

Eric grins, "I guess you'll find out. Alright, come on. Volunteers."

We all look around at each other, no one wanting to go first.

"Come on, we haven't got all day."

Logically speaking, there has to be something at the bottom, other than the ground, otherwise, they would be sending every single one of their initiates to their death, therefore getting no new members.

"Alright everybody, make up your minds. Who's gonna be first?"

"Me."

Everyone looks to see who spoke, and it's Tris. I look around and see that everyone else is as shocked as I am.

"The Stiff. Alright, come on up."

Tris steps up on the ledge and takes her grey sweater off, getting a couple of insults from a group of Candors.

"Today, initiate."

Give her time Eric, at least she had the guts to go first. Not that I would say that out loud, but I want to.

Tris jumps, but I don't hear a scream. She's much braver than I am. One thing that I can't do is heights, especially jumping from really high up. I hear something far below that sounds like springs stretching. Maybe there's a net or something like that down there.

"A Stiff was braver than all of you. This is going to be a fun year. Who's up next?"

If I don't go now, I never will.

"I'll go."

He nods, and I walk up to him. As I step up on the ledge, I have to remind myself that I'm not going to die. I'm not going to die, I'm not going to die, I'm not going to die.

"What's wrong initiate? Scared?"

"What do you think?" I say, and immediately regret it. I don't think too many people are dumb enough to talk back to him. Lord, I hope I didn't make him mad.

I don't look him in the face as I jump, not wanting to know how angry I just made him. I'm falling and trying not to scream, which is really hard for me, but I don't want to be outdone by Tris.

I finally hit a net, and I hang on. I see a hand reach up and grab the net, pulling it down, I guess so that I would roll off, but I don't budge. I am hanging on with all my might.

"It's okay, you're not dead or dying. You can let go." I simply shake my head. I then feel two hands grab my waist, pry me off the net and set me down.

"Geez kid, you had a pretty good grip on that net. Not a fan of heights?" I shake my head again. I'm afraid if I open my mouth to say anything, I'll still want to scream. Or puke. The guy just chuckles at me.

"I'm Four. You are?"

"Wait, Four? Really?"

"No, that's my name. What's yours?"

"Jamie."

He nods and sends me on my way. Once everyone has jumped, Four leads us to our quarters.

"For those of you who I didn't talk to, I'm Four."

"Four? Like the number?"

Oh Christina, please don't let Candor take you over.

"Yes. Is there a problem with that?"

"No, just what happened to One, Two, and Three?"

"What's your name?", he says and starts over to her.

"Christina." now he's nearly right in her face.

"Okay, Christina. I suggest you keep your Candor mouth shut, understood?" Christina nods, her eyes bugged out.

"Now, this is where you will be staying."

"Boys or girls?"

"Both."

He turns and gestures to the back of the room with toilets and showers, no walls or curtains between any of them.

"You should like this Candor, everything out in the open" he says, looking at Christina and the boy that was insulting Tris on the roof. I think I heard him say his name was Peter. He has two people that seem to be following whatever he does, a broad shouldered girl, and a red headed boy.

After giving us a small tour of everything, Four gave us our new Dauntless clothing and left us to figure things out and get to dinner when we're done. I'm not sure if I like him or not. He seems like a no nonsense type of person, but he's not quite as cold as Eric. Maybe that's just how the Dauntless are. Sometimes being brave means not letting people see what you really feel in order to keep them brave. I guess it just becomes habit after a while.

I follow Will, Christina, Tris, and the Candor boy who asked what was at the bottom. His name is Al. He's been staring at Tris for the entire walk down to eat. I think he might like her just a little bit.

"So where should we sit?"

Tris points to a spot that just happens to be right beside Four. "We could go there."

We all look at her like she's lost her mind, but it's too late. She's already on her way over there. We follow and she sits down, and starts to try to talk to him. I am so hungry, and there is so much food! As I'm filling my plate, I snap to attention when I hear Four's voice. I was too focused on the food to realize she was still talking to him.

"What makes you think you can talk to me?"

"I guess it's because you're so approachable." when she says this, he hesitates, not sure what to say.

"Careful."

She kind of ducks down a little and turns back to us. We're all staring open mouthed, amazed that she's still alive. Christina is the first to break the silence.

"Do you have a death wish?"

Tris just shrugs and starts to eat. Four was still in ear shot, and I noticed him grin a little when Christina said that. There's more to him than he's showing, he just has to keep up the tough guy cover. I guess I can get used to him. I look up at the table with the leadership and see Eric sitting there, eating in silence. I almost feel bad for him for a second when I look around and see everyone having conversations with their friends, but then I remember what a big jerk he was on the ledge today… and then I remember that I probably made him mad. That was not my brightest move. Well, maybe I got lucky.

 **Eric POV**

I look around at all the Dauntless, listening to all the noise going on around me. I enjoy listening to the craziness, but I also enjoy not having to actually talk to any of them. There are perks to everyone being afraid of you.

I look down at my initiates. I'm going to be helping Four train them all this year. I hate Four with a passion, and Max knows that, but I'm stuck with him anyways. I'm looking at the Stiff and her group of friends when I realize that one of them is looking at me. I don't think she even realizes that I'm looking back, she seems to be studying me or something. I kind of want to yell at her to quit staring, but then I'd have Four to deal with. He's always so protective of the new kids. Wait a second, that's the girl that's afraid of heights. I remembered her looking a little nervous before she jumped, but Four told us after, that she wouldn't let go of the net. I don't know about that one. She was the second jumper, even though she's afraid of heights, so she's brave, but she's from Erudite. The one trouble maker always comes from either Erudite or Candor. She's already smarted off once, but I could tell it got past her before she could stop herself. She looked almost afraid of me when she jumped. Almost, but not quite. She shakes out of it and starts digging into her food. She's the only one that isn't absolutely terrified of me. Well, we can fix that easily.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

 **Jamie POV**

 _CLANG CLANG CLANG_

"Alright, everybody up and at 'em. First day of training starts in the Pit in ten minutes."

Ugh. I don't want to get up. After yesterday

being so full, I was sleeping like a baby. That is until Four decided to come wake us up by banging a pipe on a bed rail. Whether I like it or not though, we have to be down there in ten minutes, so I get up and get dressed quickly, trying not to think about the fact that I am changing in the middle of a room full of people. I know Tris is having a harder time with this than I am. I mean, she came from Abnegation, they're the people that have you covered from your neck to your toes.

When we get down to the Pit, I see Four standing at a table with a row of guns laying across it.

"Alright everybody, today you are going to learn how to shoot."

Four passes the guns out to us, and I'm not sure that's the best idea. The majority of us are yawning and about to fall asleep standing up.

"But what does bravery have to do with shooting a gun?", Peter says through a yawn.

The next thing we know, Four has his gun pointed at Peter's temple, who, I might add, is looking wide awake now.

"You're holding a loaded gun, you idiot. Act like it."

Peter nods fervently.

"And to answer your question, you'll be a lot braver if you know how to defend yourself. Anymore stupid questions?"

There's dead silence in the room now. Four nods, I guess happy, and begins to teach us how to hold the gun, aim, and shoot. The gun feels sort of strange in my hands. The fact that I'm holding an object that can change someone's life in less than a second is mind blowing.

When I actually begin to shoot the gun, I aim, and surprisingly hit the target. Granted, I didn't hit the bullseye, but at least I'm in the the first circle. That's more than I can say for most of the others. After a few shots, I look and see that Will and Christina have both hit their target once, Al is getting closer at least, but Tris is doing terrible. Will seems to have noticed as well.

"You know, statistically speaking, you should've hit the target at least once by now. Even by accident."

She just looks at him, rolls her eyes, and keeps trying to shoot. I notice that Four is paying a little more attention to her, and looks like he's itching to help her. Finally he walks over and watches a little closer, making her more conscious, and she starts to shoot a little better. He looks satisfied and walks off to check on everyone else. Finally, after a while of this, Four calls time.

"Alright, I think that's enough for today. Everybody seemed to be doing okay for their first time. You all feel pretty good with it?"  
Everyone is mostly silent, but there are a few nods here and there.

"Great. Ok, everybody go to dinner, and get good rest. Tomorrow we meet in the training room. Time to start learning how to fight."

At this, a few people perk up, but I can see Tris almost back away. No wonder, with her being so small, she's going to get beat to pieces. Then again, I'm not exactly strong, nor am I very big, but I'm good at tactics. Maybe I can work my way out of danger.

As we head down to dinner, I start thinking of ways to survive a fight if I get matched up with somebody like Al, who is twice my size. I really think I'm probably going to die, but I'll figure it out.

I sit down with the group in the same place as yesterday, but Four has moved, probably not wanting to be bothered by us again.

"So, fighting. How do we think this is going to work out?"

Will shrugs, apparently not too worried, but he's also a foot taller than me, and about fifteen pounds heavier, he's got nothing to worry about.

"Well, I mean it can't be too bad. You just have to find your opponent's weakness, and there you have it. What about you Al?"

"Honestly, I think it might be the only thing I'll be good at. I mean, I'm big enough, I can pretty much just sit on a guy and win."

I just shake my head and laugh.

"Tris?"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure I'm dead. I mean, look at me. I'm tiny, I'm from Abnegation, so I've never seen a fight, let alone actually been in one. I have no strength at all. I'm thinking this is going to be the part that I fail."

"Hey, I'll fail with you. I'm from Erudite, all I've ever done is memorize text books all my life."

Even though I know this is probably going to be tough for me, I'm still thinking of ways around it. If I can get through this without dying, then I'll be fine. Maybe Will is right, just find the weak spot. Maybe it is just that easy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

 **Eric POV**

I'm standing here waiting very impatiently for Four to bring my initiates to the training room. It doesn't take that long to get up people, move it or lose it. Ah, finally there they are. They all come in, and look directly at me, I guess still remembering how I was the first day. Good, I made an impression. Four walks over to me so we can start them up.

"You know they're terrified of you, right?"

"Good, they should be. You tell them yet?"  
"What, that half of them are going to end up factionless? No, I figured you would want that pleasure."

"Oh, you know me so well. Alright everybody listen up! Today, you will be learning how to fight. For right now, you won't be fighting each other, we'll have you start on those punching bags over there. However, before we begin, I have an announcement to make, now that I realize that Four neglected to do so. You see this board?" most of them nod, the rest just stare at me, wide eyed. They'll be the first ones gone.

"This board, is how you will be ranked. Those numbers, are your rankings. The red line there, is something that you do not want to be close to."

"Wait, why are we being ranked?"  
"Glad you asked, kid. This year, there's a new rule. We only want a certain amount of new members, so some of you will be factionless by the end of initiation. The best will stay, the ones who made the wrong decision, those that do not belong in Dauntless, will be kicked out."

"Wait, what? Why weren't we told that?" it's a Candor girl. Of course. The Candor never do know when to keep their mouths shut.

"Why should it matter? Would you have chosen differently, had you known? In that case, you don't belong here. Anyone with that frame of mind can just go ahead and walk on out of here."

They all look around at each other, most of them looking even more nervous now, especially that little Stiff. She and her friends are going to be close to the line. Then again, there's one that still doesn't look nervous. She might make it, I don't know, I haven't seen what she can do yet.

"Ok, so here's what's going to happen. We will demonstrate a few hits, and let you get started on the bags. We will be walking around, checking on you."

After demonstration, we let them have at the punching bags, and I must say, this is pathetic. There are only a few that are actually making the bag move at all, and the rest of them are just tapping it, not making an impact. Edward is doing good, as well is that stupid Candor kid, Peter. I can't stand him. Haven't even had to spend a full day with him yet, but I already don't like him. I've seen how he treats the others, putting them down because he's afraid of not being on top. He doesn't belong here.

As I look around, I stop at that one girl again. Everyone else is just hitting, just copying Four and me, but she is doing some different things. I see her stop, then keep hitting, trying something new each time. She's thinking, constantly. I'm surprised she left Erudite, as smart as she seems to be. Then again, battle tactics are an important part of being Dauntless. She's moving faster than the rest of them too. They are all feeling things out, moving a little slower, but she's already figured out staying on her toes, where to jab, how to do it as quickly as possible so that you can block a blow, or make another hit. This will definitely be her strong section.

"Hey Four, what's her name?"

"Which one?"

"The one between the Candor and the Stiff."

"Wait, do you know any of their names?"

"Yeah, Edward. Oh yeah, and Peter. I've heard enough about Peter to learn his name pretty quickly, and enough about how well Edward did to figure him out, but they aren't who I was asking about. Who is she?" I point at the girl again. She doesn't see, she's too focused, but the Candor girl beside her looks up, eyes wide, I guess expecting me to come over there and strangle her friend or something.

"That's Jamie. Transferred from Erudite. Why do you ask?"

"I noticed the way she was going at the bag. Everyone else is just doing what we showed them, but she's trying out new things. Everytime she does something, she catches on to something else. She's smart."

"Been watching her pretty close?"

"Well, it's not like the rest of them are doing anything. Well, Edward and Peter aren't half bad, but we already know Edward will pass, and maybe we can fail Peter out at some point."

"If only. Hang on, I've got to go help Tris. She's killing me. Looks like she's never even seen a punching bag."

"She hasn't. She's a Stiff."

He glares at me when I say that. He's from Abnegation as well, so he still bristles at the term "Stiff", but less than he used to.

"Alright, you help her out, I'll keep a watch on everyone else."

He nods and walks off to help her. There's more than one reason he wants to help her, but I'm not going to say anything. I may hate him, but I have to admit, he can take me in a fight any day.

For the rest of the class, I just stand here, watching some of the most pathetic people in the world sling their arms at a bag. Still just those three catching my attention, although Tris is a little better off than she was.

I dismiss the class a few minutes early, mostly because I was tired of watching them all, but I know they worked hard today, I guess they deserve a break. See, I can be nice when I want to be.

As they walk out the door, I'm still watching Edward and Jamie. I couldn't care less about Peter. When Jamie walks past me, she doesn't look at me, but she doesn't keep her eyes down. It's almost like she's trying to show her confidence, but if she looks anyone in the eye, she'll lose it. Something about her is different than the others. She'll do very well here.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

 **Jamie POV**

 _CLANG CLANG CLANG_

Seriously? It's been a week now, and I still can't get used to the wake up call.

"Pit in ten. Don't be late."

Oh right, today is the first day we actually get to fight each other. Four and Eric have been showing us different techniques and moves, and I've been learning all I can, trying my best to prepare for this. I know I'm small, so every advantage I have, I will definitely use. I did notice that, while they were teaching us, Eric always looked a little nervous when Four would demonstrate, and use him as a practice dummy. Makes me think maybe Four has beaten Eric a few times. So that's his weak spot. He's too cocky to admit he wasn't on top on something, but he also still remembers it.

"You ready?"

I turn around to see Will waiting for the rest of us.

"Yeah, sure. I'm ready to get creamed probably. How do you think they'll pair us up?"

"Who knows. I guess we'll see when we get there. Come on slow pokes, let's go."

When we get to the Pit, my nerves shoot through the ceiling. I am nearly shaking, but i'm not sure if I'm excited at the thought of actually fighting, or terrified of the thought of being crushed. Eric stands right in front of the mat and immediately has our attention. I'll give him credit, he's pretty good at silencing a crowd.

"Today, we are going to pair you up to fight. A winner will be declared, when one person is no longer able to continue."

"The fight may end when one person is no longer able to continue, or when one concedes."

"Four, those are the old rules. The new rules state that no one concedes. When one person can't continue, meaning they are rendered immobile, or unconscious, the match will end, and a winner will be declared. Now, for the starting match. First jumper, last jumper, on the mat."

We all look at Tris, and she's gone pale. Well, more pale than she already was. I look up to see who the last jumper was, and realize, this is not going to be pretty. It's the broad girl that follows Peter around everywhere, along with the redhead, Drew. I'm pretty sure the girl's name is Molly.

For the majority of the fight, I can't look up. I don't want to see Tris get killed up there. Finally, I hear Eric call the match, announcing Molly as the winner. I look up and Tris is laying on the mat and doesn't look like she'll be getting up for a while. Eric nods to Four and he takes Tris off to the infirmary.

"Alright, that was a quick fight. Second jumper, next to last jumper. In the ring."

Everyone looks at me, and it takes me a second to remember that I was the second jumper. Well, at least if I'm going to be beaten to a pulp, I don't have to dread it all day. Let's get this over with.

I step onto the mat, and Drew steps up. We both look at Eric, and he nods as a signal to begin. I look Drew in the eye, and see him glance towards my stomach. As soon as I see him move, I know where he's going to hit. There's a flaw in his system: he always looks where he's about to hit. You always need to keep eye contact with your opponent. After a few seconds of blocking and thinking, I realize that he's really thin, if there was weight on his shoulders, it could easily make him top heavy.

Now, not that I've tested this theory too often, but I've sort of figured out that I land on my feet pretty well and I can be pretty flexible. The next time he throws a punch, I act quick, I throw my leg over his shoulder, and pull up, now pretty much on top of his head, then I lean backwards. As I pull him down, I jump off and land on my feet, while he continues to fall. I hop on top of him as quickly as possible and punch him in the nose a few times, until Eric pulls my arm away.

"Geez, three hits to the face and he's already out. What a wimp. Okay, Jamie wins. Here, help me move him over until Four comes back."

I help him carry Drew to the side and when I'm about to go back to the group, he holds me back.

"What was that?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't think I've ever seen anybody fight like that. You hopped on his shoulders and tipped him over like a little teapot. I don't think I've ever seen someone think so far as to take in balance, weight, all of that, actually do a full analysis of their opponent, especially on the first fight. That's pretty smart. I guess that Erudite blood is still in there."

"Well, yeah it is, but it helped me not die in my first fight, so I'm not complaining."

"Oh, I'm not either. That was cool. I only have one thing wrong with it. It wasn't Dauntless. To be brave, you use your skills with confidence that they will work, whether you lose or not."

"I did use my skills. I just used my intelligence instead of my strength. I still won the fight. The rules clearly state that the winner simply has to beat their opponent, it doesn't lay out a specific way to do it."

"Okay, you don't have to smart off."

"I'm not smarting off, I'm simply stating the facts. I'm just being honest."

With that, I walk back to my friends, shaking, more over having to talk to Eric than over the fight. He said it wasn't Dauntless. What if he figures out that I'm Divergent? I haven't had to worry about this since I got here. I thought I was safe, nothing came up that worried me, but now Eric is on my case. He's a leader, if he figures out, I'm sunk.

Will puts a hand on my shoulder when I get back over to him.

"You okay?"

"Yeah I'm fine."

"What did he want?"

"He just had a few… comments on my fighting."

"Good or bad?"  
"I really can't tell with him. Well, he wasn't yelling, so I guess good."

I look up at Will, and he can tell that I'm worried about something else, I can see it in his eyes, but he doesn't say anything. I look back at Eric, and he points back to the infirmary.

"Why?"

"Sure you won, but I still want them to give you a once over. I sent Molly too. Go."

I nod and make my way to the infirmary, kind of glad that I'm getting away from him. I'm afraid of him now because I'm afraid he's on the track to finding out about me, but I still don't understand why everyone else is afraid of him. As long as you don't do anything stupid, you're on his good side.

 **Eric POV**

I know I fussed at her about it, but that was cool. I have never seen anyone do that. She is pretty small, so I figured she would probably lose her first fight, even though she was doing pretty well in training. She just proved me very wrong. I'm still going to have to work on her thinking though. Yes, the Erudite way works for now, but one of these days she's going to be standing there thinking, and there won't be any way out, except for throwing punches and hoping you get out alive, meaning she would have to be brave enough to keep fighting even though there's no way to win. That's the Dauntless way, bravery, not intelligence. I mean, we jump out of moving trains, do you really think we're that smart?

I watch the rest of the fights, calling, not really paying much attention until someone loses, still thinking about her. I can't figure it out, but there's something different about how she acts. One thing that is still eating at the back of my mind, the fact that everyone else, afraid of heights or not, was afraid to jump, thinking they would die or something. She was the second jumper. Tris was first because she was a Stiff going into Dauntless, she had something to prove, but Jamie was second, even though she was afraid of heights. She was the only one that didn't seem to think she was going to die, she was rational, she knew something had to be at the bottom, or else we'd be killing all of them off. She is brave, she's going to do great in Dauntless, but she's extremely smart, and uses it like an Erudite. She would've done very well there too. She would fit great into two factions. I wonder… no. They would've figured her out by now, she can't be… but what if someone covered for her? No, I won't believe it. She's not Divergent. She can't be, she's the only one here I can actually stand.

"Eric."

"Huh?"

I look up and Four is staring at me.

"When did you get back?"

"Just now, and it looks like you should have called that fight a while ago."

I look to the mat, and one of them is knocked out, and the other must have seen it, because they weren't still beating on them, they had just sat down beside them, I guess waiting for me to call it.

"I'm not even going to say anything, you know who won. Edward, congratulations, I'll be back in a minute."

As I'm going up to get the other guy to take him to the infirmary, Four puts a hand out to stop me.

"What?"  
"What just happened? Why weren't you watching the fight? You were just staring off into space or something."

"I was thinking, I lost track. Edward knew not to go too far anyways, it's fine."

"It's not fine, you need to be watching your students. It's your job."

I know he's right, so I don't argue, but I do shove him out of my way as hard as I can, before I go grab the kid off the mat.

Once I get to the infirmary, I drop the kid off, and start to head back, but I hear somebody call me back.

"Hey, wait a second."

I turn around, and see it's Jamie.

"Okay, what's up?"

She looks nervous coming up to me, but she still walks up beside me.

"Well, they're sending me back, said I was fine. Anyway, I know you're our trainer, I figured you could give me some tips. You told me I was doing it wrong, maybe you could help me out, tell me what I need to do."

"Now, I never said you were doing anything wrong, I said you were doing it different. What you did was good, it got the job done, I'm just saying that sometimes you won't have time to think things over, and you'll have to just go at it, use your instincts."

"Okay, so that means I need to work on my strength and reaction time."

"Uh, well, yeah basically."

"Okay, thanks."

With that, she just runs off, back to the Pit. I'm kind of surprised she actually spoke to me by choice, but she did, and I think she actually listened what I told her too. She picks up on things quickly, and seems to want to learn whenever she can. She'll be an easy one to teach. I still think she has just a little too much Erudite in her, but it's nothing, right? She's not Divergent. She can't be.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

 **Jamie POV**

For the past week or so, I've been working in the training room after dinner every day, trying to get more strength in my hits, preparing for a situation when I can't be prepared, as Eric told me, but I still haven't seen what he's talking about yet. I'm really good at thinking on the fly and still haven't lost a fight yet. I haven't even been in a situation where I thought I could lose. Even so, I'm still training. We actually aren't supposed to be down here unsupervised during initiation, but no one has caught me yet. A lot of times, the majority of the Dauntless do early morning training and party in the evening, so right about now, they're all out getting drunk, while I'm getting the chance to train. It makes everything easier on me.

"And, what do you think you're doing here?"  
I turn around to see who it is, and realize that I'm probably about to die. It's Eric.

"I was training."

"Yeah, got that far. You know you're not supposed to be down here though."

"Well, not without supervision. You're here now, so, technically, that counts."

I turn back around to keep hitting the bag, trying to sound cool, when, on the inside, I am freaking out. Not only was I breaking the rules and got caught, Eric was the one that caught me, and I just pulled out the sarcasm… again.

"Okay, so you talk like a Candor, think like an Erudite, and act like a Dauntless. I just can't figure you out."

When he says this, I try not to tense up, I can't let him know anything.

"Yeah, I've heard that before. So what's going to happen, am I going to get in trouble?"  
He thinks for a minute before responding.

"Nah."

Wait, what? The toughest Dauntless leader just gave me a free pass?

"Actually, you know what? You're right. I do count, so now would be a good chance for me to get to talk to you a little bit, help you figure some stuff out."

"What stuff?"

"Well, you've got the the strength in your hit just fine, but you haven't had the chance to try your speed. You're still on top in fighting, tied with Edward, you haven't had to worry yet. I want to put you against somebody with a little more experience, you might have to scramble, and you won't get to think, you'll have to do it on instinct. That's the best way for you to understand what I'm talking about."

So, Eric is willing to train me? This is kind of terrifying, but this might actually be really good. With him behind me, I can get even better. I mean, I might even get ahead of Edward. Our fights have just been draws so far, he still gets up every time I take him down, but I can read him too well for him to take me out. After too long, everybody gets bored, they call it a draw.

"Okay, I'm in"

He nods, and claps his hands together once.

"Let's get started."

 **Eric POV**

"Alright, so I'm not going to say anything yet, we're just going to go for a few minutes, and when I call, I'll tell you what you need to know. Sound good?"

She nods, already in stance to fight. Always eager to learn. So we start to fight, and the next thing I know, she's on my shoulders and puts me on my back, and she's standing over me, waiting for me to get up.

"Okay. Should've seen that coming. Let's not do that anymore, that hurt."

"I wouldn't know, I won that one."

"This is practice. The point isn't to win, it's to learn, alright?"

She offers me her hand to help me up. I don't take it, pushing myself off the ground.

"One thing I'd like to point out, is that you're too confident. That can get you hurt just as bad as not knowing what you're doing. You were so confident in that move, that you didn't guard anything. Let's go again."

This time, she gets me on the ground, but only because I let her. I have a plan. She's on my chest, holding me down, and punches me once, but I put my hands on her waist and launch her to the other side of the mat. I get up, and watch her get off the ground. She definitely looks surprised.

"Sometimes, your opponent won't always stay down. You have to be ready to get back up and keep fighting. Keep going."

Now I see a glimmer in her eye, and I'm not sure if she's mad that I threw her, or excited that she's learning, but it's kind of cool. She comes at me, and aims for the stomach, but I block. I have to give her credit, I just barely caught it at the last second. She doesn't give it away by looking, she keeps eye contact. I am pretty proud of that.

She keeps coming, and I keep blocking, throwing a punch in here and there, but mostly letting her get some time of actual sparring, instead of just laying out her opponent and walking off. She keeps getting quicker, and I get hit a couple of times, not being able to block in time.

"Good, you're getting faster. Keep going."

As soon as I say that, I can almost see her mind start working, and she stops moving around me, and stands still on the mat, so I stop as well. I don't know what she's going to do, but I can tell she has a plan. While we're standing still, I have the perfect opportunity to throw a couple of punches, so this time I throw them at her face. I don't want to hurt her, but this is what training is, you have to be prepared for every hit. I expect my fist to hit the side of her head, but she ducks quickly, and when she's back up, I see her start thinking again. I throw another one at her head, and she ducks, then swings her leg out and knocks me off my feet. Then she's on top of me again, trying to knock me out, and I reach up to throw her, but she catches it this time. She puts a knee on each one of my arms. I am strong enough to move her again, but I don't because I know the others in her class aren't that strong, so this would be the point where she would be able to end the match.

"Okay, get off. Good match."

"I held you down, but you're still strong enough to get me off. You didn't this time. Why?"  
"Well, I was going to, but first of all, the rest of the initiates aren't that strong, so you would've won that one. Second, I didn't want to hurt you anymore than was necessary, because you still have fights to do the rest of this week, and we have something special planned at the end of the week."

"Something special? Like what?"  
"You'll see."

Being from Erudite, I know what makes an Erudite tick, and not knowing something will drive her nuts.

"Don't go around trying to figure that out either, because if somebody tells you, I'm gonna have to kill them."

She just rolls her eyes at me.

"Hey, you did good today. You'll definitely make it past initiation."

"Thanks."

I hold my hand out for her to shake, but she's wary at first. I think she's still just a little nervous around me. Eventually, she takes my hand… and I flip her over on her back.

"And that's for putting _me_ on _my_ back before we even got started good."

I offer her a hand up, but she does like me, and refuses it, pushing herself off the ground.

"Yeah, I'm not falling for that again."

"Smart. You pick up quick."

After practicing, she heads off to her quarters, and I head back to my apartment, but I can't help but replay our practice in my mind. Partly because I'm trying to figure out what else I need to do to help her, but also because I actually enjoyed myself. She's… different. I don't really have any other way to put it, but she's different than anyone else down here. She's the only person I actually like. I think maybe tonight helped her get past being so nervous too. The only thing is, she's kind of scaring me. She almost cracked through the shell without either one of us realizing it, and I can't let that happen. That shell is there for a reason.

Despite getting used to her, and actually liking being around her, something still bothers me: she could easily go into three factions. What if she really is Divergent? I've had to kill them before. I didn't enjoy it, but it had to be done. I've seen how they kill them, I know what they'll do to her. What if I'm the one that has to do it? But that won't happen if she isn't Divergent and she's not. She can't be. Right?


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

 **Jamie POV**

Finally it's Friday. Tonight is the night that Eric said they had something special for. It's been killing me ever since he told me about it, because I want to know what it is. I'm very impatient, and very curious, that's a bad mix.

We head to the pit for the fights this morning, and I see that I'm paired against Edward. I guess Eric wants me to try this again.

Our fight is the very last one, and Tris's is right before mine. She's fighting Peter. I don't know what they were thinking matching her up with him, he's going to destroy her.

Will and Christina both won their fights, and I'm just waiting for mine now, but I forget we still have to get past Tris and Peter, and this is not going to be pretty.

"Tris, Peter, in the ring."

Four calls them up there and looks like it's killing him to have to put her up with Peter. I think he cares for her more than he's showing.

The fight is hard to watch, because I knew she was going to lose, but I hoped it wouldn't be this bad. He's beating her as hard as he can, but she keeps getting up, she won't stay down. I just want her to stay down, so Eric can call it and it'll be all over with.

About half way through their fight, I see movement out of the corner of my eye. I look over to see what it was, and I watch as Four leaves the Pit. He can't stand to watch it either. I look to Eric, hoping he'll just call it already, she's too stubborn, she'll keep standing until he kills her.

"Okay, that's enough. One of you help me take her."

He looks at me when he says that, I guess not wanting to have to deal with any of the others, but not wanting to ask my help directly.

I walk over and help pick her up, and I try to give him a look, asking why he let that happen. Why didn't he stop it.

"Stop looking at me like that. It's the rules Jamie, I tried to leave them until he knocked her out. If you don't follow the rules, nobody cares, but I'm a leader. I have to follow everything to a tee. Besides, I hate to break it to you, but she wasn't going to make it anyway. She's out."

As soon as we lay her on the bed in the infirmary, I start to run back to the Pit.

"What are you doing?"

"Going back. I have to fight. You should get back to marking names off the list, weeding them out. That's your job isn't it?"

"Hold up."

I stop. Even though I'm angry with him, I don't keep running.

"Yes, it is my job. I'm sorry that I have to follow the rules, but you come from Erudite, if anybody is going to understand what happens when you break the rules, it's you."

"Your job is to weed out the ones that don't belong."

"She doesn't belong! She got the crap beat out of her, she hasn't won a fight yet!"

"Winning fights is not the point of Dauntless, Eric! You're a leader, you know that! You told me that! Dauntless means fearless, not undefeated. What about Peter? Are you going to keep him in? Of course you are, because he hasn't lost as many fights, but he's a coward! You've seen how he treats everyone else. He's afraid. Afraid that someone is going to be better than him, so he has to make sure they know he's the best. That's not Dauntless. Tris was brave and stubborn enough to keep standing up. She wasn't afraid of getting beat all to pieces, she was brave enough to keep standing, to keep fighting. That's what Dauntless is, that is the definition of Dauntless! Shouldn't that be in your rules?!"

"You are an initiate, you do not get to tell me how to run things, understand?"

"Yes, I'm an initiate, but I understand Dauntless far better than you. You figure it out, and I'll calm down. Other than that, stay away from me."

I take off at a sprint, going back to the Pit. I still have to fight Edward, and I'm determined to prove to Eric that he's wrong about Dauntless, about me, about Tris. He is very wrong.

We still have to wait for Eric to get back, but it doesn't take him long. Apparently, he started running too, as soon as I took off.

"Jamie, Edward, in the ring."

We step up, and I don't look at Eric when he tells us to start. In fact, I hardly hear him, I'm so focused on beating Edward. For the first time, this will not be a draw.

Edward throws a few punches, but I easily dodge them. I want to do the same thing I did in practice the other day, when I wiped Eric's feet out from under him. I intentionally leave my face unguarded, almost begging Edward to swing. He does, but he doesn't make contact. In a flash, I've got him on his back, and I'm pounding on him. I feel Eric take me off of him, and I know I kicked Eric at least once, not wanting him to touch me.

When I saw Edward's face after I beat him, I realized I probably should have held back just a bit. I was taking out all my anger against Eric, on Edward.

As soon as they let us go, Will, Christina, Al, and I go to check on Tris. I'm nearly crying from anger, knowing that we'll have to be the ones telling her that she's out. We pass Four on our way to the infirmary, and he holds us for just a second.

"Hey, I know you're going to check on Tris, but be at the train station at about 6:00. We're going for war games."

"War games? What is that?"

"You'll see."

With that, Four hands us what look like bullet proof vests and walks off.

So that's what Eric was telling me about. Just the thought of Eric makes me want to punch something. I know I should probably be afraid of him, I know I had to have made him angry, but I'm so mad myself, I'm not afraid of him.

Once we get to Tris, she is actually awake.

"Hey Tris, how are you feeling?"  
"Like I just got beat up by Peter. What are those for?" she points at the vests.

"War games."

"War games? Wait, do I need to be coming with you guys?"  
"No tris, I don't think you're allowed."

"Yeah I am, I feel fine. I'm a little sore, but I'll be alright." I look at the rest of the group, and decide to break it to her.

"No Tris, you aren't allowed as in, you have to be part of Dauntless. Eric said you were done. He's kicking you out." when I say his name, I feel my hands start to shake with anger again, but I clasp them together, not wanting my friends to see.

"Wait, what? I'm factionless? I didn't even get through the first part of initiation, what if I'm actually good at the rest of it? I can make it, I can get above the line-"

"Tris, I already tried to get him to change his mind. He's standing firm on his decision. I'm sorry."

Christina looks at me and taps her watch.

"Tris, I'm sorry, we have to go. Just stay here, they won't let you go until you're feeling better. We'll get to talk to you later tonight."

We get up to go, but I don't want to leave her. She's our friend, we shouldn't have to let her go like this. Granted, I know Edward had to deal with Myra, his girlfriend, being cut last week, but it doesn't seem as bad when it happens to someone else. When it happens to your group, to your friends, it's just painful. And right now, I blame Eric. I still think it would've been a much better decision to get rid of Peter. Strength doesn't make a person Dauntless. Bravery, determination, not being afraid, even when you know you're about to fail, that's what Dauntless is.

I'm thinking about everything that's happened today, all the way to the train. Once it arrives, we all hop on, and I put my vest on when we get in. Just a minute later, I hear someone yell that somebody was chasing the train. I looked out the door and saw Tris, grinning and running. Four reached out and gave her a hand in, which she seemed to appreciate a little more than she should.

"Hey! What are you doing here?"

"Playing war games with you guys. Who cares what they say, I'm Dauntless, and I know it. That's all that counts."

Her eyes go a little wide as she looks over my shoulder, and I turn to see Eric standing there.

"Who let you out?"

"I did."

He thinks for a minute, I guess trying to decide whether to kick her off the train or let her stay.

"Okay." he says. As he turns to walk off, he looks at me and nods. I don't care if he let her stay, I'm still mad at him.

A few minutes later, he calls for our attention, and we all turn to him, waiting to hear what he has to say.

"So, war games. This is basically just capture the flag, except with guns."

He holds up a small, red gun, and Molly scoffs.

"You call that a gun?"

He points it at her thigh and shoots. She falls to the ground, in apparent pain and there is a small dart sticking out of her leg. Eric bends down and pulls it out.

"When shot with this, it will simulate the pain of a real gunshot wound. Only lasts about five minutes, but it hurts. A lot. Okay, two teams."

He waves an arm in front of Four, indicating that Four gets first pick.

"I'll take the Stiff." he says, grinning.

"Alright, picking the weak ones so you have an excuse when you lose."

"Yeah, something like that."

Eric looks around, deciding on his first pick, and looks right at me. No. Don't you do it, I still hate you.

"Jamie. You're on my team."

I give him the hardest glare I possibly could as I walked up beside him. He just smirked at me, which did not make me any less angry… okay, maybe it helped him just a little, but not enough to count.

After the picking of the teams, we jump off the train into what looks like an old amusement park. The two teams split up and we go towards a clock tower on one end of the park, while the other team heads for the ferris wheel on the other end. Once we get there, Eric calls for silence, and lays out a plan.

"Okay, there aren't too many strategic places to put this on our side of the park. The best we can do is protect it. Pretty much anywhere we can put it is predictable, but if we have good protectors, we can make it. We just have to try to find theirs before they get to us."

We all nod, still no one speaking.

"Alright, Drew, I want you to take half the team to find their flag, the rest of us will protect ours."

Drew nods and grabs a few people, but leaves Molly. He knows she isn't fast, she would be best as a protector. He's pretty smart. Peter decides to stay with us, wanting to be a protector as well. My guess is, he just wants the chance to shoot people.

"Jamie, I want you to take Molly and Edward with you up to the top of the tower. Take the flag with you, that's where you'll hide it. The rest of us will stay on the ground and try to keep anyone from getting up there to you."

"Wait, the top? Like all the way to the top?"

"Yes. Is there a problem?"

He knows I'm afraid of heights. That's why he's putting me up there, he's getting back at me for this afternoon.

"No. No problem at all."

I'm really tempted to shoot him, but he's the only one who actually knows what he's doing. We need him.

"You're undefeated in the fights. I don't need you down here shooting a gun, I need you up there, shooting if you need to, but fighting them off."

I think he's done, so I start to walk off, but he adds one more thing.

"Then again, just like you said, bravery is the whole point of Dauntless. Not being undefeated, not winning, but being unafraid to face your fears. You're afraid of heights? You're Dauntless, deal with it. I don't want to hear a single complaint."

"Do you want me to protect the flag?"

"No I'm sending you up there with the flag for no reason at all." he says, the sarcasm pouring from his lips, and something like triumph filling his eyes.

"If you want me to be a protector, I would advise you keep your mouth shut, or I will walk this flag right over to Four."

"Oh no, I don't have to worry about that. I'll shoot you before you can get over there. Get to the top of that tower. Now."

I still have to fight the extreme urge to shoot him, but I go to the tower and, despite the fact that this thing is four stories tall, climb to the top with the flag.

 **Eric POV**

I watch Jamie climb the tower with the flag, and regret every single thing I've said to her, every word, but it kept her in line. The bad thing is, and I hate to admit this, but she's right about Peter and Tris. Tris is brave enough, she needs to stay in Dauntless, this is where she belongs. Peter needs to be gone. He is cowardly, there's no mistaking that, yet we keep him because he can fight, and get rid of her because, even though she kept standing, she isn't as strong as he is. It's just not right.

I hear a yell that sounds like Peter, but I don't move. That was a yell of pain, he must've gotten shot. I wait, where I'm at, hoping to hear whoever it was that shot him. I listen closely, then I hear Tris and Four whispering. They're right on top of us. Now is the time to attack.

"NOW!"

We all pop up and start shooting them down, but Tris slips through. I try to shoot her, but Four steps in the way before I can pull the trigger. We have a bit of a standoff.

"Protecting your little girlfriend?"

"Oh you're one to talk Eric. Where's your girl?"

"My girl? What are you-" I let out a scream of pain. I've got to give Four credit, he knows what it takes to distract me. He shot me in the shoulder, but I can deal with this. I pull the dart out and start to run behind them, but it's too late. I see our flag in Tris and Christina's hands as they wave it in the air. Wait, I put Jamie up there, she's the best fighter I have, how on Earth did Tris get that flag?

As they all come down from the top of the building, I see Jamie and I run over to her. She's holding her shoulder the same as me.

"What happened? How'd she get the flag?"

At first I thought Jamie might have stood back and let them get it to get back at me, but I look at her, and she actually looks angry with herself.

"I got shot, that's what happened."

"But you have better aim than either of them."

"They pushed me to the window. Did you know those things are open? There's no glass, just a nice fancy hole in the wall that somebody can fall out of, to their death. Between the two of them, they got me up against the window, and I made the mistake of looking out, making sure I wasn't about to fall. They took the opportunity to shoot me. I guess my fear kind of got the best of me on that one."

I notice she's nursing the shoulder, but still hasn't pulled the dart out yet.  
"Want me to get the dart?"  
"Yeah, I didn't get the chance to, I was too busy watching them take the flag. I love my friends, but I still sort of wish we had won."

"Yeah, I've been wishing that for a long time."

"On a losing streak?"

"Yeah, maybe a small one."

"Yeah, sure. Small."

Once we hop on the train, she and I sit down, and I take the dart out of her arm.

"Ouch."

"Sorry. These little things hurt, don't they?"

"Yeah, just a little bit. I thought the pain was only supposed to last about five minutes."

"Well, the gun shot feeling lasts about five minutes, but it does shock your nerves, so that lasts a little longer."

"Oh wow, thanks for telling me now, after I've already been shot. Real helpful."

We just sit there in silence for a few minutes after that, and she's warming up to me, but I think she's still just a little mad about everything that happened today.

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened earlier. I had a little time to think while I was down there, waiting for them to come at us, and it turns out, you were right. I mean, even though you are afraid of heights, you went up there. You didn't want to, I could tell, but you did it anyway. That's what we're looking for. You were right about Tris as well. She might not be the best fighter, but she is much braver than Peter. I shouldn't have gone off on you, I shouldn't have tried to get rid of Tris, and I definitely shouldn't have spoken to you the way I did earlier. I'm sorry."

My head is hanging, I'm too ashamed to look her in the eye, and I'm not exactly used to apologizing. I'm not entirely sure what made me apologize this time.

She bumps me with her shoulder, so I do look up a little bit, and she's smiling. Only a little, but it's still there.

"I have to admit, I wasn't the nicest to you either. I should have understood that you were just following the rules, whether you liked them or not. I have a feeling that there are a lot of rules you have to follow here, that you don't really like."

"Yeah, maybe a couple."

We go back to silence again for the rest of the train ride home. When we jump off the train, I roll down the hill, and as soon as I'm about to get up, she lands on top of me.  
"Sorry! I'm sorry!"

"If you're sorry, then move." I say playfully, letting her know I'm not mad. She gets up, and shoves me back down as I try to get to my feet a second time. As soon as I stand, I run after her, and barely kick the back of her heel, but she's running fast enough that it made her start rolling. I just laughed as I watched her, and she stood up, laughing just as hard as I was. I realize that the fact that I'm laughing is getting a few weird looks. I lost capture the flag, so they expect me to be mad, and it's not like I laugh on a regular basis anyways. In fact, the last time I laughed was when I was with my sister, a little over two years ago when I was still in Erudite. She was the only person there that I liked, and now, after being here for two years, I've actually found someone in Dauntless that isn't afraid of me, and that I actually like. These past few weeks of her initiation have probably been the best weeks I've ever had here. Even today, we started off bad, but we ended with a good day. She's the best thing that's ever happened to me. When she's done laughing, she doesn't keep running, she waits up for me, not even caring about the fact that people are looking at her like she's nuts for hanging with me.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

 **Jamie POV**

"Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, we could get in serious trouble."

"What are they going to do, throw us out? They can only do that if we fail initiation, they can't do a thing with us until we're members. Don't worry so much Drew."

"Dude, I want to be closer to the top too, but are you sure this isn't going a little too far? I mean-"

"Just shut up and follow me."

I hear these two voices whispering, and once I realize what they're saying, my eyes are wide open. What are they doing? I slowly turn my head and see Peter and Drew sneaking across the room with what looks like a butter knife in Drew's hand. Peter holds his hand out, and Drew hands him the knife, then they stop, right in front of Edward's bed. It hits me what they're about to do, but I'm too late. The next thing I hear is a scream and I see the two boys run. After Edward's first scream, nearly everyone is up, and I'm the first one over there, trying to help him. Tris comes over, ready to help me as well.

"Jamie, what happened?"

"Hold on Tris. Edward, listen to me, I know it hurts, but you have to stop screaming so you can listen. Okay, I want you to take your hand off the knife."

"I can't!" he's nearly sobbing at this point.

"Yes you can. Look, you need to calm down. The more you freak out, the more this is going to hurt. I need you to calm down and sit still. Can you do that?"

He starts to calm down, slowly removing his hand from the knife. When I see that it's actually stuck in his eye, I nearly gag, and have to turn away.

"It's okay Jamie, I've got it."

I just nod and let Tris take over. I did as much as I can do, and I don't mind blood, but seeing the knife, and the fact that it's somebody I know, just about took me over the edge. Next thing I know, Eric and Four are running in there with a few other Dauntless, gathering up Edward and taking him to the infirmary.

Tris is covered in blood, and when they finally get Edward away, I think it hits her what happened. She nearly throws up, and Christina and I have to help her to the bathroom and get her cleaned up. While we are cleaning up, I tell the other two girls what I heard them saying.

"Jamie, you know what this means."

"Yeah."

"You need to be on the lookout. Edward was a step below you because you beat him once. That's the only fight he's lost, and you're undefeated. If they went after him, they will definitely go after you."

"It makes me wonder why they didn't come for me first actually."

"They've seen how you fight. They probably figured you would beat the crap out of them before they could do anything. Still, you need to watch your back."

She's right. I need to watch, but not only because of my top scores, but if anyone finds out I'm Divergent. I'm in danger no matter what.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

 **Jamie POV**

"Congratulations to those of you that survived the fights. What we are about to start is going to test how Dauntless you really are. We are going to start working in something called a fear landscape. A fear landscape is a simulation, in which you will face all of your worst fears. Most people have from about ten to maybe somewhere in the twenties. It'll take a while to get through everybody, especially on the first day. In the landscapes, the goal is to get past your fears the fastest. The more fears you have, the harder it is to have a fast time, but do your best. We don't expect anyone to come in under half an hour, considering the fact that it's your first day doing this."

Once Eric is finished explaining the fear landscapes, they start calling us in, one by one, in alphabetical order. Oh, this is going to take a while. Christina, Will, and Tris all go in before me, but they don't sit back down. Everyone is sent back to the dorms. This has to be extremely emotionally taxing, I mean it's the worst fears you could possibly have, and you have to face them, figure some way out. I notice that everyone seems so freaked out when they get done, but Tris only seems mildly upset. She also had a really quick time. I wonder if she had a really low number of fears or something.

"Jamie, come on in."

I'm really nervous, but I have to get this over with at some point, might as well do it now. I sit down in the chair and see Eric with a syringe in his hand.

"For now, you will still be aware that this is just a simulation. In this sim, you will face your worst fears, and you have to get past them all to finish. You can't just get halfway through and freak out and quit, because you won't be allowed out of the sim, okay?"

I nod, and wait for him to inject me with the serum. I close my eyes when I feel the needle go into my neck, and open them again, and see that I'm standing on a very narrow rail between two skyscrapers. I look down and nearly fall. I've got to be at least a mile above the ground.

"It's just a sim, it's okay, it's not going to hurt you." is what I tell myself, trying to keep in mind how I handled the dog in the aptitude test, that it didn't hurt me, this isn't real. Even so, this all looks way too real.

Okay, gotta think. If this were real, I would walk across this rail to one of the buildings, but this is a simulation. I know I'm not going to die. I look down, and jump. I'm falling for an extremely long time, and at some point in the fall I started screaming at the top of my lungs. When I see the ground coming up, I brace myself for the pain, but it doesn't come.

I feel my feet on the ground again, and I look around to see people everywhere. I'm standing on a platform in the middle of a group of people, and they're all looking at me, like they're expecting something. I'm terrified of being the center of attention. I just close my eyes, and walk off the platform, straight through the crowd of people, keeping in mind that they aren't judging me because they don't exist. It's not real, don't cry.

When I open my eyes again, I feel something crawling on my legs and look down. Spiders. Nope, I'm done. I feel them crawling, and I start to freak out. I'm doing the best I can to wipe them all away, but I can't get rid of them. The more I wipe away, twice as many come back. It's not a real, the spiders aren't real, they can't do a thing to you. In the next moment, I do the hardest thing I have ever done on my life. I lay down on the ground in the middle of all these spiders.

After a few seconds, I don't feel anything crawling on me anymore, and I stand up, only to hit my head on a ceiling. Oh crap, small spaces. I'm in an already small box, and it starts to get smaller. I don't know how to beat this. The best thing I can do is just sit here, waiting for the box to crush me. I know I can't defeat a box, there's only so much I can do. I just hold still and try not to panic, despite the fact that the box just keeps closing in.

Finally, I don't feel the walls of the box anymore, but I am laying on my back, in what feels like a bed. It's dark, but I see something glint. Once my eyes adjust, I see Peter standing over me, holding a knife, ready to kill me. I immediately hop up and throw him on the ground, kicking the knife away, and start beating his face in.

I feel a hand pull my arm back, and I turn to look straight into Eric's eyes. I look back to where Peter was, but he's gone. I'm facing yet another fear. Eric looks at me, and speaks to me in a serious, completely emotionless voice.

"Follow me."

"What? What's going on?"

"I'm escorting you from Dauntless."

"Why?"

"You don't belong. You aren't Dauntless. You're too afraid, you aren't brave enough. You don't belong here. You didn't make the cut."

How am I supposed to get past this?

"If you think that, then you don't know me. I am brave enough. I'm braver than a lot of those guys that are still in. You can try to take me out all you want, but I'm staying right here."

He simply nods, and walks away.

I sit straight up in my chair, and I'm back in the fear landscape room. I look up and see Eric standing at his computer, typing something, then he looks up at me and smiles.

"Wow."

"What do you mean 'wow'?"

"You only have six fears. That's pretty good. In fact, that's really good. Our all time low is four fears. Guess who that was."

"Four. So that's where he gets the nickname from."

"Yep. Hey, I do have one question first though, what was the deal with Peter in there? Was he the one the stabbed Edward?"  
I drop my head. I forgot that Eric could see the fears, and I just basically ratted Peter out. Now he's going to have even more reason to come for me.

"Never mind, sorry I asked. I shouldn't bring up the fears. You just had to live through them. Okay, you're free to go. Head back to the dorms, you all have the rest of the day off."

I stand up and head back to the dorms, and see a lot of the other initiates just sitting on their bed, either crying or staring into space. This is starting to look like a mental institution. I find my friends, and right now Chris is telling about her landscape.

"Bugs, everywhere, crawling in my mouth, my eyes, I just couldn't get rid of them."

I nod.

"Yeah I had the same, but just spiders."

"Oh, that's almost worse."

"Yeah. so how many fears did you all have?"

"Well, I had thirteen, Will had fifteen, and Tris was close to beating a record."

"Four's record. Yeah, Eric told me about that. He said I was close too, I only had six fears."

"Same!"

"I looked at the times though, I think you beat me. I had to think my way out of it, but it took too long."

We all talked for a little while until it was time to head down to dinner. On the way down, we see Eric walking our way. The others look down, but I smile at him. He grabs my arm on his way past, without saying a word.

"Guys, I'll be back later I guess."

They're all standing there, staring in horror, as if they think I'm being dragged to my death.

"Okay, what is this all about."

"Don't say a word, just come with me. I'll tell you in a minute."

I just do as he says, following and staying quiet. I have no idea what is going on, but I'm beginning to have the sinking feeling that someone found out. They know about my results.

In a few minutes, we arrive at the control room.

"What are we-?"

"Hush."

He opens the door, but puts a hand out, stopping me from following him in.

"Stay here, I'll be right out."

 **Eric POV**

"Was that Jamie out there?"  
"Yes, Four. I have a question for you. Can you access the test results of the initiates?"  
"I can, but I would need a reason." he's wary. He knows I've caught onto something, but he doesn't know what.

"What were Jamie's test results?"  
He looks mildly relieved, as if he thought I was going to ask about someone else.

"Why?"  
"I'm a leader, you aren't. What were her test results?"

"No."

"Why won't you tell me?"  
"They are classified. The only ones who know are whoever enters in the results, and the leaders of Erudite."

"Fine."

I walk out, and Jamie is still standing there, but looks like she wants to back up.

"What's was going on in there?"

"I need to know something. What were your test results?"

She hesitates, but only for a second.

"Dauntless."

"Jamie, you can trust me. What were they?"

"Dauntless."

I want to believe her. I want to believe that she is normal, that she only got one result, but there's just too much pointing to Divergence.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, today in your sim, you were supposed to be aware, so that didn't bother me, but the way you got out of the stuff. You didn't do it logically, you did it as quick as possible, trying to get out of there. Even a normal person doesn't think like that, they would still try something logical or brave, but not crazy, defying how everything is supposed to work. Please, tell me the truth. What did you get when you took your aptitude test."

"Eric, I've said it twice, Dauntless. I don't know how to make it anymore clear. Am I done now?"  
"Yeah, sure. Go eat. I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you."

Tomorrow is Saturday, all the initiates have to day off, but we'll probably still see each other at some point. Honestly, lately we've been trying to talk to each other. Everyone else avoids me, and she's trying to find me.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

 **Jamie POV**

They put our scores up last night, and Tris and I are on top now because of the fear simulations. Because we both had such a low number of fears, we got through the quickest, putting us up top. I remember seeing a glare from Peter, and Al looked pretty depressed seeing that he was almost last, but I ignored most of it. I'm still excited now, and am having trouble getting to sleep.

"Okay, on the count of three."

That sounds like Peter.

"One… two… three"

I hear a muffled scream, but I don't move. If Peter sees me, I don't know what he'll do. I hear them struggling, and hear their footsteps head towards the door. If they're going to the door, they can't see me now. I get up and follow them out. I hide behind corners, following them quietly, and we seem to be heading to a place that I've only been to a couple of times: the chasm.

"Guys, we've got to get her to calm down, I'm about to drop her."

Her? Who've they got? I peek around the corner, and see them carrying a really small girl… Tris! They have Tris!

I keep following, because if I try to stop them, I'll get hurt, and they'll just keep going. They all have masks over their faces, so the only one I recognize is Peter because of his voice. We're at the chasm now, and they stop, so I do as well, still trying to keep an eye on them around the corner. I think they're trying to throw Tris over the edge of the chasm! I'm about to run out, but Tris pulls one of their masks off, and reveals Al, and I'm too shocked to move. Al? But he's one of our friends, he actually has a crush on Tris, what does he think he's doing? I see someone run in from the other end of the walkway around the chasm. It's Four. I back up, staying behind my wall, because I know Four's got it. He'll have a better chance than me. I hear him talking to Tris, checking on her, and hear footsteps running my direction, so I start running too, figuring it's her captors coming back through.

"Well, look who it is. The next target."

I stop running, and slowly turn around to see Peter and Al. Realizing the third is missing, I look over Peter's shoulder and see Drew laid out. Four got ahold of him.

"Peter, just stay where you are. You don't want to mess with me."

"Oh really? There are two of us, Jamie. Two of us, and one of you."

"Bet I can still take you. Look, just leave me alone. I won't say a word, just leave me out of it."

"Leave you out of it? Oh, you got yourself into this when you followed us down here."

He glances at Al, who nods and lumbers towards me, looking as if he almost doesn't want to do this, but he can't stop himself. Al throws a punch, but I dodge, ducking and punching him in the stomach. I try to kick him, but he catches my foot and throws me down. While I'm on the ground, I swipe out at his legs, my new signature move, and put him on the ground with me. Next second I'm on top of him, about to hit him, when I feel an excruciating pain in my left knee which was straight out behind me. I roll off of Al, holding my knee.

"As I said, two of us, one of you. Have fun getting back."

With that, Peter helps Al up, and they both run back to the dorms, but I just lay here. Peter stomped directly on my knee. Even if I did feel like getting up, I'm not sure that I can. What if this ends up like Edward, where I'm injured and useless so they have to throw me out? No, I can't let that happen.

After a while of laying there, I finally decide to try to stand. I can't put pressure on my left leg without falling. After who knows how long, I make it back to the dorms. I see Peter and Al, both asleep. Wait, no, Al isn't asleep. He's shaking, almost as if he's… crying. He's crying? _He_ is crying?! After what he just tried to do to Tris and me, and he is the one crying? I'm so tempted to walk over and punch him in the face, but I remember that I can't walk all that well right now. I lay back and, despite the pain, go to sleep, so exhausted from what happened.

The next morning, I wake up and I'm the only one still here, everyone else having already gone to breakfast. I get up and limp my way to the dining hall. My knee isn't any better this morning, if anything, the pain is worse.

I walk in the door of the dining hall, and see Tris standing there in a sweater that's too big for her, yelling at Al. He drops his head, and starts toward the door, but looks up and sees me. His eyes are huge, and seeing him almost makes me cry, out of both fear and anger. He just drops his head again, and walks past me without saying a word. Christina, Will and Tris all see me walk in with a limp, and they come to help me out.

"What happened to you?"

I just shake my head, not wanting to talk about it. I'm still not sure it happened. I mean, my friend, Al, was part of Peter's plan to kill Tris, then get rid of me? I feel a hand on my shoulder, and it's Tris. She knows. She saw the way I looked at Al as he walked out. I notice she glances up, over my shoulder, and her eyes get big. I turn around, and nearly jump up, trying to get away from him. Peter was standing right behind us.

"Aw, what's the matter Jamie? You aren't afraid of me, are you? Little ol' me? And what happened to your leg, huh? You limp around like somebody stepped on it or something."

In this moment, I don't think I've ever been more afraid. Behind him, at the leaders' table, I see Eric stand up, watching Peter, then I hear someone behind Peter clear their throat. Peter turns around, and immediately scurries away, revealing Four to have been behind him. Four nods to me, but I just turn and get out of the hall as fast as I can, heading to the chasm. I know, that's where all the crap happened to me last night, but it's still a quiet, peaceful place. I sit down, tears rolling down my cheeks, and start to sing. That's all I can do right now, the only thing that I can do to calm myself. I start singing my favorite song, _Black Parade_ , and just block myself off, hardly noticing the world around me.

 **Eric POV**

I'm sitting here peacefully eating my breakfast, when I see a commotion at the initiate table. I look, and Jamie looks like she's backing up away from someone. I watch a little closer and see something in her eyes that I've never seen before, other than in the simulations. I see fear. When I realize it's Peter she's backing away from, I stand up, ready to go down there and beat the crap out of him, but I see Four stand and look at me, shaking his head. He just quietly makes his way over behind Peter and scares him. As soon as Peter is gone, Jamie runs, or limps more like, away. Why is she limping?

I get up to follow her out, but Four meets me at the door.

"Eric, what are you doing?"

"Checking on my initiate. Move."

"Really? Checking on your initiate? Okay, so if one of the guys, or one of the other girls even, was running out, injured and scared of Peter, would you follow them out? Try to find out what was wrong? No, you would just give a speech in the next class about needing to leave the other initiates alone."

"Okay, you can get at me all you want about Jamie, but what about you and Tris? That's not her sweater that she's wearing."

At the mention of Tris, I can see Four tense up, wanting to pounce on me, wanting to beat me, but he knows I'm right.

"Fine, but don't let the others see what's going on. They'll accuse you of favoritism, she won't get fair judgement in the final part of initiation."

I nod and rush past him. I've got to get to her, figure out what's going on. If someone hurt her, I don't know what I'll do, but, quite honestly, it'll probably end up being something stupid.

I don't know where she went, but I take a few turns, thinking maybe she'll be somewhere close. It's not like she could go far, she'd get tired of walking on that leg pretty soon.

When I'm getting close to the chasm, I hear a sound that I haven't heard in ages. I hear someone, a girl, singing. Here in Dauntless, we aren't exactly the tender hearted people, so we don't really sing all that often. I can't help but think that, maybe it's her.

I go to the edge of the chasm, and look around, finally seeing someone sitting against the rail on the other side. There she is.

I start to walk over there, and realize that the singing is getting louder. It is her.

"Whatcha singing?"

"Holy crap! Eric, don't do that! Geez, make some noise or something!"

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Seriously though, that sounded good, what song was it?"

" _Black Parade_. One of my favorites. What are you doing here?"

"I saw what happened in the dining hall a while ago. Want to tell me what that was all about?"

"No, not really."

"Alright, if you won't tell me that, then tell me, what happened to your knee? You weren't limping around like that yesterday."

"It's nothing. I just fell on the rocks last night."

"The rocks? I've fallen on the rocks before, and gotten bruised, but I wasn't that bad off, and I know you aren't any more sensitive to pain than I am. What really happened?"

"Why do you have to know? Why do you have to know about everything? You ask about my results, you ask about this, what if I just don't want to tell you?"

"If you don't want to tell me, then I guess I'll just have to drive you nuts until I get it out of you. I just want to make sure that no one hurt you, and that no one ever will. Unless it's necessary for training, but that's not the point. You don't have to tell me who, you don't have to tell me how, just tell me, did someone do this to you?"

She doesn't answer, she just hangs her head. It's like she's afraid to say anything, afraid that something worse will happen.

"Let me see it."

"Why?"

"I just want to see if you need to go to the infirmary."

She nods and pulls her pant leg up, her face scrunched up in pain because her pants are tight around the knee. It's already swollen, and as soon as she gets her pant leg past it, it swells even more. It's bruised all over, and swollen like crazy. There are lumps and divetts in places there shouldn't be, telling me that something in there is broken in some way or another.

"Oh yeah, you need to go to the infirmary."

She shakes her head.

"You need to."

"What if they say it can't be fixed and I'm thrown out like Edward was? If I can't walk on my leg, then I'm useless here."

"I'll take you there myself, and I promise I'll make sure that doesn't happen. You're not going to be thrown out. I'm not sure I could stand it around here without you. I'd get bored and have to go back to entertaining myself by making fun of the other initiates again. There are only so many insults I can come up with."

She laughs just a little, which was my intention. She's upset, she's in pain, she needs to laugh.

"Okay fine, I'll go, but only because I know you'll drive me insane until I do."

She tries to pull herself up with the rail, but I still don't want to make her walk all the way to the infirmary.

"You're about to hate me."

"Wh- Eric, you better put me down."

"I am not going to make you walk all the way there, so shut up and quit trying to hit me."

She yells at me all the way to the infirmary, and still gives me the death stare when I put her down on one of the beds.

I leave her and go to find someone who can check her out. I find one that I recognize and drag him over there.

"Can I borrow you for a minute?"

"Sure, what's up?"

I don't even say anything, I just point to her knee.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

He has her lay back, and try to straighten her knee. It pains her, but she does it. He asks me to watch, maybe hold her down, which confuses me at first, but as soon as he puts his hand on her knee, she tries to strangle him. From then on, I had a good hold on her arms.

"Okay, this is pretty messed up. It looks like something crushed your knee. Did anything land on it?"

"Yeah, but that's not important. What's going to happen?"

"Well, your knee cap is broken into three pieces. Whatever landed on it was either really heavy, or had a lot of force behind it. We can mend it, but recovery is going to be painful and very long. You won't be up and fighting for months."

"Okay, but I will be able to fight again at some point though, right?"

"Well, yes, but you'll have to be careful. You'll have to guard that leg and you'll need to keep it on the ground. Your full out sparring will turn into boxing. You won't be able to kick, or anything like that."

"Okay, thank you. What do you have to do to fix it?"

"Just a surgery. Shouldn't take more than a few hours."

"When can it be done?"  
"Umm… I would have to see when someone is available to do it."

I look him in the eye with the hardest stare I have.

"She said, when can it be done?"

His eyes grow to the size of dinner plates.

"You know what, I think one of our surgeons has an opening this afternoon, that work?"  
"Sure."

The guy runs off, I'm assuming to tell his surgeon that he no longer has the day off. I turn to look back at Jamie, who is trying not to laugh.

"Okay, I know you want me fixed, but you didn't have to scare him to death."

"And yet, you're laughing."

"Fine, it was kind of funny."

"You still aren't going to tell me what happened, are you?"

"If I tell you, I know you won't just leave it be. You'll go try to fix things, and though I don't mind it, it's cool to know you're trying to protect me, but this time it might cause me more problems."

I nod, wanting to disagree, but she is right. If I figure out who did this, it won't be pretty.

"Actually, Eric, can you tell me something?"  
"Uh, sure."

"Why are you like that with me? Everyone else is afraid of you. If this happened to anyone else, you wouldn't have carried them to the infirmary, you would've made them walk it off. You wouldn't be so worried about what's going on, about who did it, you would just go in the next morning saying, 'Look guys, you only fight in class, stop trying to kill each other.' Why do you treat me so differently than you do the others?"

"I… I don't really have a good answer for that. I mean, I guess I kind of treated you differently from the start. Even most of the Dauntless born are afraid of me. If anyone else had smarted off to me before jumping into that net, I would've made their lives miserable, but you weren't afraid. You seemed to know, even before you actually got to know me well, you seemed to have an understanding that I'm still a person, just like everybody else. I'm not a monster, I can be treated like a person, just like I can treat others like people. I just don't very often, because I don't like that many people."

"I thought you said you didn't have a good answer."

"Hey, I was being nice for a change, don't push it too far."

"I'm just saying, that was a pretty good answer."

While we're sitting there, I see the doctor guy come back out, still looking a little wide eyed.

"Eric! We have someone on the way to help her, but you are needed at the chasm."

"What? Why?"

"Max didn't say-"

"Wait, Max?"

"Yeah. I don't know what's going on, but when the big guy calls, I'd say it's pretty urgent. He said he needed you down there as soon as possible, and try to grab Four on your way."

"Okay, tell her where I've gone. Thanks."

I run out of the infirmary, to Four's apartment.

"Four! You in there?"

He opens the door, looking confused.

"What are you doing here?"  
"Max called. He needs us both down at the chasm, ASAP."

"What happened?"  
"I don't know, but if he needs us both, my bet is it has something to do with one of the initiates."

Four and I pick up the pace, getting to the chasm and seeing Max and few of the leaders standing at the edge, looking down.

"What happened?"

"Someone jumped. I think it's one of the initiates."

By now, a few people have started to show up. I guess they saw me and Four running and followed. We pull the kid up, and once he gets within view, I can't say I'm surprised. It's Al, the kid that hangs out with Jamie and her little group. He saw the rankings, he knew he wasn't going to make it anyway. Also, I talked to Four earlier this morning and he told me what Al, Drew and Peter did to Tris last night. With what he did to his friend, that probably took him over the edge.

As we're pulling Al up, I look over my shoulder and see Tris, close to tears. Really? After what he just did to her, and she's crying over him? Well, I guess now, right in the middle of initiation, we have a funeral to plan for.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

 **Eric POV**

As soon as we are finished with Al's funeral, I go straight to the infirmary. I had to make the funeral speech, and a lot of people are not happy with me, so going to Jamie means getting away from an angry mob of Dauntless.

I get in there, and see that Christina, Tris and Will are already there. As soon as I walk in, Tris stands up and comes at me.

"What do you think you're doing here? And what was that, huh? What was that? Some stupid speech that you made just because they told you to. What Al did wasn't brave and it wasn't something to celebrate. Before you even tell me that you were just following the rules, would they kill you if you went off road for just one funeral?"

"You never know around here."

"And now you're joking about it."

"Tris, give him a break."

I don't think I've ever heard a room go quiet so quickly.

"What?"

"I said, give him a break. He's right. You told me what he said, and I don't like it either, but he did what he had to do. As he has personally explained to me before, when I saved your butt, that following every single rule around here, no matter what you think, is essential. If you go astray, it might actually get you killed."

"What is this? Now you're taking his side? You've seen how big of a jerk he is in class and outside. He followed the rules because he didn't care about Al and doesn't care about anything, that's why he follows so closely, and why he told you to. He thinks everyone should be like him, should be mindless, heartless drones."

"Tris, lay off him, alright!"

"No. I'm not going to lay off. I don't know why you're defending him, maybe you care for him, but I can tell you one thing, he doesn't need defending. He doesn't care about you, and he most certainly didn't care about Al, or what he did. Al wasn't brave, he was a coward, but Eric doesn't care, he's just going to go along with whatever they tell him to."

"How do you know if he cares or not? Ever bothered to ask him? Have you ever actually talked to him? No, you just listened to Four, and assumed that Eric can't be anything else, that there is no other side to him."

"Don't bring Four into this!"

"You know what, I like Four just as much as anyone else and I understand that he doesn't get along with Eric, but he has to understand that he has no right, going around giving others impressions of Eric before they even figure him out. You say Eric doesn't care for anything, but it's not like you care anything about Eric. You have a biased opinion. Now, unless you have something reasonable to say, I suggest that you drop the matter."

"I'll drop it when he leaves."

I start to back out, not wanting to cause any more problems than I already have.

"Well, Eric isn't going anywhere. He came here to see me, probably to tell me something, and he has the right to stay here as long as he likes, so I'm not going to shove him out."

Tris looks at me, at Jamie, then back to me again. She looks like she wants to kill me and, after that stupid speech I just gave, I honestly don't blame her.  
"Tris, I'm sorry about that. I actually didn't like it any more than you did. Four told me what happened, what Al did, and I'm sorry it happened, but I can't change that."

Tris just lowers her head and backs up. I walk over to Jamie and sit down, glad I'm getting to talk to her for a change.

"Jamie, we'll see you later. We need to be heading back."

She waves at them, and I wait to speak until they are out of the room.

"Thanks. I hope you know that I really did hate doing that stupid speech for his funeral, but if I had said what I was really thinking, it would've been bad."

"Well, I'm not happy that he's gone, but I didn't particularly like him after what happened to Tris and… well, what happened to Tris."

She quickly corrects herself and looks down.

"Something happened to Tris and…?"

"And nobody. I just tripped over my words. The meds from the surgery must not have worn off yet."

I know she's lying, and it slightly hurts me that she still doesn't trust me enough to tell me, but I'm thinking that maybe this has nothing to do with trust this time. I look into her eyes, and see fear there. Whatever happened to her is still fresh on her mind.

"Look, I understand that you don't want to tell anybody about what happened to you, but I want you to know that I will protect you with my life. If anything like this happens again, you can blame me. I'm not letting you out of sight, especially now that two attacks on initiates have happened."

"I can take care of myself. I mean, I'm not complaining about having you around more, but I can protect myself."

"Clearly." I say, gesturing to her knee.

"Okay, so I messed up this time. I'll do better next time."

"Well, my job is now to make sure that there isn't a next time. Luckily, fighting is over, however, I want to start training with you again. When you fight, everything you do involves using your legs. Whether you're climbing up somebody, or kicking their feet out from under them, you personally use your legs all the time. I want to train you to fight without using your legs too much. That means increasing your core and arm strength. We're going to work on that a lot. Sound good?"

"Well, it would, but I was talking to the guy that worked on me, and he said that I'm going to be on crutches for about two weeks, then I can put weight on it, but not much. Just give me a little time."

"Take all the time you need. You are gonna be out of here pretty shortly though, right?"

"Yeah, once they get the crutches to me, I'm free to go. Why, you miss me?" she says, playfully punching my arm.

"Actually, I have some more training I want to do with you. A different training. It doesn't require you to use your leg."

"What kind of training is that?"

"Fear landscape training. As soon as we can get you out of here, we'll go straight to the landscape room. I have some things I kind of want to work on with you."

"There's only so much we can work on, I mean it's a simulation."

"Just trust me. You'll see what I mean. I'll explain when we get there."

She kind of has a questioning look, but she nods. I think she trusts me. About that time, I see one of the doctors come over, carrying her crutches.

"Here you go, you should be good to go now."

He looks up at me, then back at her, and his eyes get big.

"Oh, I am so sorry, we shouldn't have taken so long."

"Don't worry about it man, it gave us some time to talk. Thanks for working on her knee."

He looks at me, not quite sure what to say. I have a pretty big reputation around here, and I'm not really known for being very patient. I just pat him on the back and he turns around, completely shocked, and goes to take care of another patient.

"Well that was nice. What happened to you?"

"You're a bad influence on me, that's what happened. I've been hanging around you too much. You're making me soft."

"Aww, have I uncovered the big teddy bear under there?"

"No no no. I am not a teddy bear. That will never happen, so don't even plan on it."

"Okay, softie."

I just give her a look, then help her get up. As soon as we're out of there, we head to the fear landscape room. Once we get in there, I grab two syringes.

"Okay, so what I wanted to work on is how you get through your fears. I know you don't want to say it, but something is different about how you do it. What we're going to do is go through your fears, and I'll tell you what you need to do."

"What's wrong with how I do things?"

"Jeanine is watching the final test to determine whether you pass initiation. If she sees anything even remotely off, she will pull you out, she might even kill you. She doesn't take chances, if she thinks somebody could be Divergent, then she wipes them out."

As soon as I mention Jeanine killing the Divergents, Jamie starts to fidget and won't look me in the eye.

"Jamie, do you have something to say?"  
Her head snaps up, almost like she was in a daze.

"You're right. We need to work on it. I can't take any chances. I want to be part of Dauntless."

"Did you consider any other faction before you chose?"

"I mean, before the test, but when I got my result, I decided on Dauntless. We're taught to trust the test, no matter what."

"So, you didn't just choose Dauntless because it was the best place for you? Maybe the test didn't give an answer and you had to choose on your own."

"Why would you ask something like that?"

When she says this, I can tell she's trying to say it confidently, but I hear a slight tremble in her voice.

"I ask because I've seen the proof. I've heard you talk, watched you fight. You could easily go into two other factions. Yes, you fit in great here. I see parts of you that are undeniably Dauntless, but then I see parts that are Erudite and Candor. A little too much of both for me to ignore. Look, I've grown to… care about you, like I haven't cared for anyone else, I'm not going to give you up to Max, but I want you to trust me. Answer me honestly. Are you Divergent?"

She just hangs her head a little, and nods. Man, I hoped I was wrong. I had a hunch, but I was still hoping maybe I just misinterpreted her crazy personality. She's in danger. Hopefully I'm the only one that's picked up on this.

"Okay, if you really are, then that makes this work in the landscape even more important. When you are in the final test, you aren't supposed to be aware that it's a simulation, but you will be. For that test, you will have to act like you think it's all real, and you can't do crazy things to get away from your fears, you have to deal with them as if they were happening in real life. When we go in, I'm going to be in your landscape with you. I'll tell you what you need to do, and I want you to remember everything, and do it exactly as I tell you to, okay?"

She nods, but I think she's still not sure of me, now that she's aware that I know. I think she's still afraid that I might let slip.

"Eric, why are you protecting me?"

"I told you I will protect you with my life."

"Yeah, but why? You wouldn't do anyone else this way. You would throw them in as soon as you found out."

"Having you around has changed me a little. We've always been lead to believe that Divergents are dangerous and that they will corrupt the faction system, but you aren't dangerous, and you haven't messed up a thing. If anything, you've helped me. I have somebody that actually likes to be around me. If anything happened to you, I would go nuts. I would be back to the same thing, everyone being afraid of me, and I would go cold again. I need you. Believe it or not, that's a hard thing for me to admit."

I can see it in her eyes, she's still worried, but I don't think she's worried that anything will come from me.

"No one will know. I'll make sure of it, I promise. Now, you ready to try out the sim?"

"Yep."

I inject both of us, and the world goes dark for a second, then there is light, but far too much light for us to still be in the landscape room. I look around, and see the sun setting behind a group of huge buildings. It's kind of beautiful, I don't understand why this is a fear. While I'm taking this in, a strong wind begins to blow, and I nearly lose my balance, so I look down to see where I'm standing and realize what this is. It's her fear of heights. I'm standing on a rail that is stretched between two buildings. I look down, past the rail, and the ground is so far below that I can't see it. I look over at Jamie who is crouched down, both hands hanging on to the rail with a white knuckle grip.

"You good?"

She doesn't say anything, she just shakes her head, no.

"Here, give me your hand."

She shakes her head again.

"Jamie, you can do this. I'm not going to let you fall. Come on, get up."

She lets go with one hand and takes mine, but she is still hanging on tight with the other hand.

"Okay, give me the other one."

"Eric, I can't stand, remember?"

"Yeah you can. It's a simulation. Outside injuries don't affect how your body is in the simulation."

"Oh yeah."

She gives me the other hand, and stands, hanging on to me now, with the same grip she had on the rail.

"Okay, before I lose circulation in my hands, what do we need to do?"

"I need to jump."

"No. In real life, jumping would get you killed. You have to act like you think this is real. Landing down there is the last thing you would want to do. We have to go to one of the buildings. That one is closest, let's go for it."

She nods, still hanging on, and starts moving in the direction of the building. A few steps in, she lets go of my hands and keeps going on her own.

"If you aren't going to be with me in the test, then I can't get used to you now."

"Good thinking."

As soon as we go through the window of the building, the scene changes. I look around and we are up on a stage with thousands of people surrounding us.

"What is this?"

I look over to her, and she's nearly crying. She has her arms wrapped around her waist like she is physically trying to block herself off from all the people.

"I'm paranoid of large groups of people where I'm the center of attention. If I'm in my comfort zone, then I'm fine, but if I have to do something that I'm not comfortable with, and I have to do it in front of people, I'll break down."

"How do you get past this one?"

"Well, when I did this the first time, I just stepped off the stage and walked through the crowd. If I refuse to do what they want, the attention no longer has to be on me."

"I'm not going to fix anything with this one. I think you've got it figured out."

"Well, there's only so much you can do with a situation like this. It's not like I actually could go out of line."

We walk off the platform, right through the crowd, and we end up in a different room. I look down and see that the floor os crawling with spiders. Jamie starts to freak out, wiping them off of her as fast as she can, but she's just not fast enough. They come back in even larger numbers every time she wipes them off.

"What do you do here?"

"Last time I just layed down in the middle of them."

"Just like with the height, your goal is not to die. You lay down in the middle of a bunch of spiders, in real life, you'll probably die. Let me tell you a trick about these sims. If you need an object to get out, just think of it and, BAM, it'll be there. What do you need?"

"Um… I guess fire would work."

In that moment, I look down and see a large stick and two rocks laying on the ground.

"The rocks will make sparks, the end of the stick is covered in cloth. We can use this as a torch."

She sparks it, and we get the torch going, all the while, still wiping spiders away. Finally, she turns around and burns the spiders closest to us, and waves it in front of her, keeping the rest of them back. She throws the torch on top of the spiders, and they all disappear in the flames. Once the spiders are gone, the scene changes to a metal room, no, a box and it seems to be getting smaller.

"Oh, I forgot you're claustrophobic."

As the box gets smaller, we have to crouch down and move closer together. My automatic instinct is to protect her, so instead of letting her get crushed by the box, I cover her. I'm crouched behind her, my arms wrapped around her. I know she has to be scared, she isn't complaining or trying to push me away.

"Okay, I know you're hating this, but you have to focus. What do you need to do?"

She doesn't answer right away, but I give her a minute.

"Technically speaking, what I could do is jam it up. Keep it from moving."

"Good. Now you're catching on."

She reaches for something, and I see it's a nail. She shoves it in between one of the walls and the floor, stopping the box from closing in. I'm pretty sure her fear of what Peter did to Edward is coming up next. Or at least, I thought it was. The next scene that comes up is in the chasm, but I don't remember this.

"Jamie, what is this?"

I don't hear anything from her, so I look back and see her just backing up.

"Jamie?"

"Well look who it is, the next target."

I look up and see Peter and Al walking towards Jamie. I look behind them and see Drew laid out on the ground by the chasm, almost like he was when Four knocked him out the night Tris was attacked… hang on.

"Jamie, what's happening? This is new."

It's almost like she doesn't even know I'm here. The look in her eyes is of pure terror.

"No. No, not this again."

The next thing I know, Al is walking toward her, and he takes a swing at her. I know the only way she can get past this is to fight her own battle, but I want to go in and take care of it for her.

She gets Al on the ground, but I see Peter walk around behind her.

"Jamie!"

When she turns to look at me, she sees Peter and knocks him down too. She takes care of both of them, leaving the two unconscious.

"Thank you."

"That was new, wasn't it?"

She just looks at me, looking close to tears for the second time in this simulation, but this time there's something different. This isn't something she's afraid will happen, this is something that has happened. This is a memory more than anything. A memory that she's afraid to relive, now one of her worst fears.

She unconsciously puts a hand on her left knee, the one that was just injured.

"What did they do to you?"

She opens her mouth to talk, but only a sob comes out. I take us out of the sim. I know, I said I wouldn't and there's only one fear left, but I'm not going to make her finish, not right now.

I look up and I'm standing in the landscape room again. I see her sitting down, unable to stand at the moment, trying not to cry.

"Jamie, what happened?"

She still has trouble speaking, but she finally gets something out.

"When they got Tris, I heard them. I wasn't sleeping well. I followed them, but I knew I couldn't take them, there were three of them. When we got to the chasm, while they were trying to throw her over, I was about to try to do something, but I saw Al's hood come off. When I saw him, I just couldn't move. I saw Four come from the other side. He took Drew out, but the other two ran, and they ran in my direction. I ran, but they caught up in no time. I got Al on the ground, but Peter came around behind. Before I got a good hit on Al, Peter stomped on my knee as hard as could. I know it seems ridiculous, after what they tried to do to Tris, I should be relieved that that's all they did to me, but I still didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know if they were going to take the advantage and throw me over, or if my knee was too far gone and I'd be thrown out. I knew what Peter wanted to happen. He wanted me to be out of Dauntless, no matter what it took. I'm still afraid that's his goal."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there to help. You would think I'd've heard something, maybe heard Tris, or something."

"Don't you start apologizing, you couldn't have changed a thing. I'm still in, and they haven't killed me yet."

"You know I can't have my eye on you 24 hours a day though. They know that too. If anything does happen, you yell my name as loud as possible. If I don't come, you can punch me the next day."

"Oh wow, great trade."

She's calming down a little, but I'm still not going to make her finish tonight. I think enough is enough. I sit down beside her and just wrap an arm around her shoulders. I expect her to complain, but she doesn't say a word. She simply lays her head on my shoulder.

"I'm not going to let that happen to you again. I promise."

 **Jamie POV**

For the next few weeks, Eric and I keep training in my fear landscape, and I've pretty much got it now. I still have trouble getting past the one with Peter and Al, but I can manage. Our final test is at the end of this week, and I'm hopeful. I just can't mess up. I have to keep in mind everything that Eric has taught me, and I should be fine. I hate anyone seeing me at my weakest, lowest point, but it has helped the two of us get closer. A couple of times in the dining hall, I'll look up to the leadership table, and see his eyes quickly glance away, as though he was looking at me, but didn't want me to know.

I look up from dinner tonight to see him looking at me again, but this time he doesn't look away. He nods his head towards the door, stands up, and walks out. I guess he wants me to follow him. I get up and go out as well, nearly running into him when I get outside the dining hall. He doesn't say a word, he just looks at me, and starts walking away, so I continue to follow. From what I can tell, we're heading to the training room. I don't know what this is all about, but I don't say a word, assuming there's a good reason behind this. Finally we turn and he pulls me into the training room. As soon as the door closes, his straight posture and serious look dissipate. Something's up.

"Eric, what's this about?"

"We've got a problem. I want to show you, but technically no one is supposed to know about it other than leadership."

"Okay, so what is this 'problem'?"

"At the end of the week, the day after initiation is over, Jeanine wants to attack Abnegation."

"Jeanine wants to attack someone? With what army, a bunch of nerds?"

He's silent for a moment. Something is really wrong with all of this.

"She wants to use the Dauntless."

Now it's my turn for silence.

"Wh- how? I mean, she's got to know that most of the people here won't agree to that."

"Yeah, she figured on that. A couple of days ago, she sent in a serum for us to use. It will subdue the Dauntless members, put them in a simulation of sorts, and, once it is activated, their only mission will be to kill the Abnegation. However, there is a catch. This is not only being used to attack Dauntless, they are using it to weed out the Divergent as well. The serum won't work on you. You aren't supposed to know about this, so if I hadn't told you, either you would use that big brain of yours and follow everybody until you found out what was going on, or you would go haywire because you wouldn't be under the influence of the simulation. I trust your intelligence, I know you probably would've figured it out on your own, but I didn't want to take any chances."

"Wait a second. How do they plan to get the serum inside every single Dauntless member?"

"After your initiation, we are supposed to line everyone up, tell them that it's a tracking device, due to a new rule that says we have to know where you are at all times. I don't want to do it, because I know it makes me just as guilty of killing all of those Abnegation as Jeanine is, but I have to. I was thinking about trying to pull you out of it, but they would suspect something, so you have to go through it with everyone else, you just won't be affected by it, while everyone else will wake up in a sim the next morning."

This is a lot to take in in a really small amount of time. So he wants to keep me safe from all of this, but, in a way, he's the one causing it to happen. He can't resist though. They'll probably kill him if he does.

"Oh, one more thing. I need you to tell Tris all of that as well, okay? She's like you. I hate Four's guts, but not quite so much that I'm willing to risk getting his girlfriend killed."

"Wait, his girlfriend? Since when?"

"Since those guys tried to throw her over the chasm."

Whoa, I need to start paying attention. That was like three weeks ago.

"Wow, can't believe I missed that one."

"Yeah, well, we've been training, you haven't had a whole lot of time to focus on much else. Anyways, that's not important. Tell her what's going on, and as soon as you wake up that morning, do exactly what everyone else is doing. No one can know. If they do find out, they will shoot you both on the spot. Understood?"

I just nod slowly, still wrapping my mind around all of this.

"I am so sorry that I had to dump this on you, especially when you have your final test to focus on, but I'm just protecting you."

"Eric, what if something goes wrong? What if they do figure out that I'm-"

"I'm not going to let that happen. I told you I would protect you with my life. If they get to you, yell my name. I should be pretty close by. The leaders are supposed to be patrolling, so if you're caught by one of us, I'll be close."

I don't say anything, but I look at him, into his eyes. Something in there is broken. Most of the time I can see strength in those eyes, but now I see defeat. He knows he can't do anything to save the Abnegation, so the best thing he can do is save me.

"I'm going to do everything in my power to keep this from happening, but the one thing I know I can do is keep you safe."

"I know I ask this all the time, but it's because you've never given me a good answer. Why do you protect me more than anyone else? Why am I more important to you than the entire Abnegation faction?"

He just looks at me a grins a little bit.

"You're the only person here that I can't live without. You make life bearable. No, I take that back. 'Bearable', degrades you. You make life great around here."

I smile at him, not sure whether to punch him in the arm, or hug him.

"I guess that's a good enough answer."

"Fair enough."

With that, we go back to the dining hall, all of what he told me still fresh on my mind. I find my friends and grab Tris, pulling her aside.

"Tris, I have something to tell you."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

 **Eric POV**

It's the final day of initiation and Jeanine is here. She has to watch over all of the fear simulations. Again, all part of weeding out as many Divergents as possible before the attack tomorrow morning. Tris just finished her test with flying colors. I can only hope Jamie will do the same. Speaking of, she's up next.

As she walks in, she looks Jeanine in the eyes, trying to be confident. Considering the situation she's in, I'd say she's doing pretty well. Having helped Jamie in her fear landscape a lot, I've seen her in fear, and I hate having to watch her suffer. This is one time I don't have to watch it, so as soon as Jamie is in the simulation, i trade out with Four. He comes in a watches, I go out. I know Jeanine took notice of it, I could feel her eyes on me as I walked out, but I don't care. I just want Jamie to be done, I don't want to watch Peter beat her anymore, I don't want to watch her in fear.

A little while later, she comes out, looking shaken, but happy.

"I think I did pretty good."

I breathe a sigh of relief. I knew she would do well, but I still couldn't help but worry. I want to make sure she's safe, but with Jeanine here, I didn't know that I could ensure that.

"Wow, looks like you were more stressed about this that I was. I'm fine, you knew I'd be fine. Don't worry so much about me."

I just nod and give her a hug before we head to the dining hall. She looks a little surprised, but we stand there for a second. She doesn't understand, I was afraid she wouldn't come out of that room. I was afraid that Jeanine would take her. She has no idea how good it feels to have her right here, in my arms. The worst thing is, tomorrow there's an even bigger chance of me losing her. I saw an extra box of serum in Max's office the other day, but I don't think it was for the members. I'm wondering if it's meant for the leadership. If it is, then I can't protect her like I promised. If she does get caught, I won't be able to help her.

"Alright, I'm hungry, I'm going to dinner."

She starts to take off, but realizes that I haven't moved.

"Hey, you good?"

I just look up at her. I know I need to let some of this go for right now, just give it a rest, worry later, but I can't.

"Thinking about tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"It'll be fine. I talked to Tris and I think we'll make it. I don't know how it'll end, but I think we can make it."

"I hope so. Be careful. I'm not sure I'll be able to protect you out there. I know I said I would, but something new has come up. I don't know, but I think they might be putting the leadership in a sim as well. I guess trying to prevent anyone from protecting the Divergents."

"Okay, so I'll have to tread carefully. Look, we'll worry about this tomorrow. For now, just relax a bit. We'll go eat, celebrate, then tomorrow we'll figure things out. Besides, you know me. I'll think my way out of it."

"Just remember, you are not allowed to die, okay?"

"Yes sir."

She says, playfully, trying to lift me up. I look into her eyes and see her confidence. Confidence that this is all going to work out, that everything will be fine. I wish I could think like she does, but right now, I think I'm more afraid for her life than she is.

Once we get to the dining hall, she sits down with all of the initiates, and I go up to the leadership table. After showing the results, revealing Tris to be first and Jamie to be very close behind in second, someone tapped my shoulder. Max was standing behind me with a serious look. It's time to start the injections.

We go down and prepare everything for when the Dauntless members come back from the celebration. While I'm loading the first syringe, I'm still thinking about how to get Jamie out of this, when I feel a pinch in my neck and hear Max's voice behind me while everything goes black.

"Sorry my friend, but it's for the best."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

 **Jamie POV**

As we all file out of the dining hall, I look up to the leadership table and see that it is already empty. They must have already gone ahead to prepare the serum.

I didn't want the celebration to end, not just because I was enjoying myself, but because I knew what was coming and couldn't tell anyone other than Tris. She and I glance at each other, both knowing what's waiting outside the door.

As soon as we step out, we are immediately ushered into one of three lines, each leading up to someone holding a syringe, injecting each person. Once I get up to the front of the line, I see Eric, and I feel a small glimmer of hope light up in me, but then I see his eyes. They are the same as they used to be. His eyes are made of ice again. Lately there has been a small flame behind them, he always seemed to be happy about something when I was around, but now I look and see nothing but cold, emotionless, empty eyes. Even when he looks at me and I feel the pinch of the needle in my neck, he doesn't seem to recognize me. I'm just another person passing through. That's not Eric. He must have been right about the purpose of the extra serum.

Once we get through the line, everyone is sent back to their quarters. Now that it's right on top of us, I'm afraid of what's going to happen in the morning. I feel myself dozing off, but I force myself to stay awake. If there's one thing I've learned in Dauntless, it's that the sleepless nights are the longest nights, and I need this night to last as long as possible. I don't want morning to come.

What seems like only moments later, I hear shuffling all around me. I sit straight up, realizing that everyone else is already awake and moving. Ugh I must have fallen asleep anyways. I look around and see them all doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. Everything is synchronized. I look over to Tris's bed, and she's awake now as well. We both rush to get dressed and find a place in the line that everyone is forming.

I do my best to match every movement of those around me, not wanting to be caught. We pick up guns then head outside. I see a train coming and look up to the front of the line. Yep, everybody's jumping on. I get on the train and start looking for everyone I know. I see Tris who has moved beside Four. I can't help but notice a slight tug at the corner of his mouth when she grabs his hand. He's aware, he must be Divergent as well. I continue my survey and find Will and Christina. Eric must be in a different train car, I don't see him in here.

Everyone starts moving, jumping out of the train cars. I follow, jumping out and landing on Abnegation soil. I see the rows of grey buildings that they call their homes. There are people dressed in grey from head to toe, all of them looking up at us, exchanging questioning looks with each other. We all keep marching through and I hear the first gunshot. My head snaps towards the sound, and I see a woman fall to the ground, her small son watching her. I want to go help the boy, but I know I have to keep moving. Besides, even if I tried, it would be too late by the time I got to him.

As soon as that first shot went off, I started hearing them all around me, all the people I once knew, now just mindless drones shooting anything dressed in grey. I see Tris and Four, so I go towards them. With the both of them being awake, I need to stick with them. With the three of us, we might be able to get some people out of Abnegation, keep them safe. As soon as I get close to them, Four turns around, gun pointed at me.

"Four, she's awake. She's like us."

He puts the gun down and looks at me for a second

"Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it, you needed to be sure."

"Yeah. Lord knows, if I had shot you, Eric would kill me as soon as this is all over."

"Good point. Where are you guys going?"

"We're trying to find my parents house, gonna try to get them out safely."

"With there being three of us, we might be able to get more people out."

Tris nods and keeps going towards her parents house, Four and I following. After we've been walking for a few minutes, Four stops and I hear the *click* of a gun being cocked. Tris and I move to the side and I see Eric pointing a gun at Four's head.

"Well, look at what we have here. The great Four, now just a mindless drone."

So Eric is conscious enough to know who everyone is, but not enough to realize that he's about to shoot someone that's he's known since his initiation. Sure, they don't get along, but this isn't Eric, he wouldn't actually kill Four. I still see the cold blankness in his eyes. I hate that he's back to this, so I tune out most of what he's saying. I know he's just taunting Four before he kills him.

In a snap of movement, I see Tris put her gun to Eric's head. The other leader, who was standing beside Eric, points his gun at Tris, so I point at him. Eric looks away from Four and at the people around him. His fellow leader, then Tris, and finally me. Something in his eyes changes when he sees me. He has the look you get when you see someone in a crowd that you know you've seen before, you should know them, but you can't quite put your finger on how you know them, or where they're from. Something about me flipped a switch in his brain.

"Eric, if you shoot him, I will shoot you."

"Tris, hold on just a second. I think he remembers me."

"Remembers you? Of course he remembers you, he sees you every day."

"Tris, the leaders are under a sim too. They figured someone might be trying to help us."

"Oh please, this is just some stupid excuse you're making for him again. You know he's not under a sim, none of the leadership are. They're the ones behind all of this, don't you understand that? He's about to shoot Four, and when he's done with that he'll probably kill the two of us, and you're still trying to stand for him."

"Do you know how I figured so much out about the plan against Abnegation? Because Eric is one of the leaders and he told me. He told me because he wanted to protect me. Not only that, but he protected you. He's the one that told me you were Divergent, he's the one that had me get you in on this so you wouldn't be wondering what in the world was going on this morning. He helped us. The only reason I passed through the fear simulations without being found out was because of Eric. He coached me through. He's been caring for me since the beginning of initiation, and I have to say it's pretty hard to keep up an act for that long, so I'm pretty sure he's not faking it. I trust him and I trust that the man standing here in front of me, holding a gun to Four's head, is not Eric. Not truly."

The whole time we're standing there arguing, nobody takes a shot because everyone has a gun pointed at them. If you shoot, you get shot in this little circle. Tris still looks like she doesn't want to believe me, but she knows I'm right.

"Do not shoot him."

She just reluctantly nods and lowers her gun, therefore the other leader does as well, then I put mine down. Now, the only one still holding up a gun is Eric. He still hasn't taken his eyes off me. He looks confused, like he's not really sure what to do.

"Eric, it's me. You know me."

Eric still just looks at me for a moment, and I have my eyes locked on his. I see the flame reigniting in his eyes, but just barely. I'm so locked on him, I don't see the gun being raised to my head. I hear it go off, but I don't feel anything, I only see a flash of black in front of me, before I'm pushed onto the ground.

 **Eric POV**

I don't remember the last few hours, I don't remember going to bed last night, I don't even remember injecting anybody, but I know I must have. I must have been right, they injected us as well. As I lower my gun from Four's head, I see Jax, the other leader beside me, lift his gun to Jamie. I jump in front of her, pushing her out of the way, and I feel a pain in my shoulder. The gun was aimed at her head, but luckily for both of us, she only comes up to my shoulder. I hear another shot, and I see Jax fall beside me.

"Eric!"

That's her voice. I've closed my eyes, but I know that's her.

"Hey Jamie." I say, meekly.

Letting my Erudite roots take over, I think over what's happening. I'm losing a lot of blood, I can feel that, especially considering that I'm laying on the ground, however I still feel like my head is spinning. Though I'm losing blood, I'm not fatally wounded, I was hit in the shoulder, no where near my heart.

I hear Jamie start to do the same thing, telling Four she needs a jacket or something to wrap my shoulder.

"If I can wrap it pretty tightly, that should put enough pressure on it to supress the bleeding. We can't just leave him here, but it's not like he can go back to the compound. We have to keep him with us."

I hear voices around me, but everything kind of melts together as my brain gets fuzzy. I feel hands lift me up, then feel something wrap around my arm and shoulder. I'm too weak to fight them off, but I don't like not being in control of what happens to me.

"Eric, do you think you can stand up?"

I feel myself smile just a bit when I hear Jamie's voice.

"Yeah sure."

I try to lift my legs and get up, but I just kind of flop back down. Honestly, I'm too lazy to try at this point. I feel half dead.

"Alright, we're going to have to help him."

I feel arms pulling me up, and I want to smack whoever just bumped my shoulder. I swing my arm in that direction and feel my hand make contact with somebody as I hear Four grunt.

"You know, if you would've gotten up on your own, we wouldn't be having this problem."

I just grunt in return.

"Crap." Is all I hear before I feel rougher hands grab me, and feel the others being pulled away from me. I'm being dragged somewhere, but I still can't fight off whoever this is. I feel the ground under me change from dirt to a tile floor as I hear doors open. Finally, everything is still and I hear Jeanine's voice, but I can't really make out what all is going on. It all sounds like mumbling, but then I hear something that rings out clearly.

"I need the boys, but take the other two, Jamie and Beatrice, out back. You can dispose of them, I don't need them."

Yeah, that's not happening. I just took a bullet for her, you're not going to kill her right after I saved her. Despite the fact that I feel like crap and just got shot, I get up off the ground faster than I think I ever have and run out the door before anyone can catch me. I hear Jamie yell my name when she sees me come out the door. As soon as she yells, I see one of the men swing down and hit her in the head, knocking her out. A wave of anger washes out any feelings of pain I had. I tackle him to the ground, kicking out and taking the other man down as well. Tris hops up and takes care of the one that I just kicked to the ground while I try to hold this guy down. I dropped my gun when I jumped in front of Jamie, so I don't have one. The best I can do is hit him hard enough that he'll be knocked out for a while, or at least long enough that I can get Jamie and Tris out of harm's way.

I hear more voices behind me as the people that were with Jeanine have now come out to try to hold me down. Whatever she was planning to do with Four and I, has obviously been put on hold.

"Tris, I have a plan! You remember capture the flag?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Do that."

She has to think for a moment, but she understands what I mean. When we played capture the flag, Four held all of us off while she snuck past us and got to the flag. Here, I'm holding them off while she goes in and gets to Jeanine. While I'm dealing with these guys, I hear a gun fo off inside. The guys in front of me all stop in their tracks, giving me the chance to get past them, back inside.

As soon as I get it in, I see Jeanine laying on the ground, dead, and Tris holding a gun up. Four is sitting in a sim chair and I see a syringe in Jeanine's limp hand, but it doesn't appear that she got to him. Tris turns and shoot the control board and the screen that Jeanine was working with. As soon as she does that, I hear all of the chaos outside start to die down. Everybody is out of the simulation now. It's all over.

I go out and find Jamie who is starting to wake up. I'm starting to feel my shoulder again, but I don't care. Right now, I'm just glad she's safe.

"Dude, you took a bullet for me."

I laugh. She's definitely awake now.

"Well, as I've previously stated, I'd be bored without you. I couldn't just let the guy shoot you."

"Thanks."

She laughs just a little, I guess more out of relief that it's all over, more than anything. I sit down on the ground beside her, and put an arm around her, puling her into a hug. She doesn't protest, in fact she wraps her arms around me and just puts her head on my chest. We're both glad to see the other one still alive.

"Jamie, I need to tell you something."

"Oh yeah? And what is that?"

"I love you."

She's quiet for a small moment, which kind of worries me.

"I thought you'd never say it. I love you too."

She looks up at me and kisses me on the cheek. I don't know what my face looked like, but I'm sure I looked pretty stupid. I know I was grinning like an idiot. I didn't stop grinning until she kissed me again, then layed her head back on my chest. Then I started grinning again. So that's all I had to do to get the girl. Just take a bullet for her and she'll love you forever.


	14. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

 **Twenty Years Later**

 **Jamie POV**

As it turns out, by the end of that day, a quarter of the Abnegation population had been eliminated, but that means we saved the other three quarters. Jeanine wouldn't have quit until they were all gone.

Tris's parents both lost their lives honorably that day, but her brother is still alive and well. When all of the people involved in the attack were tried, her brother was convicted of closely helping Jeanine due to the fact that he was one of her best strategists.

All of Dauntless leadership was tried, but only Max was convicted, as he was the only leader that was not under the influence of the Simulation. After Max was taken into custody, Four became the leader of Dauntless. Though Eric was Max's right hand man, he actually offered the job to Four. He was a bit reluctant to give it up, but he came to the realization that Four was a bit more level headed and less prone to anger flares than he was.

After initiation was over, Eric finally asked me out. We dated for three years, until I was twenty, then we married. A little over a year later, I gave birth to our first daughter, Zoie Grace Coulter, who will be choosing today. Eric had to stay behind and wait for all of the initiates at the rooftop, but her little brother, Alex, is with me.

Her brother is named after mine. On the day of the attack, my brother was killed because he came to his senses and turned against Jeanine, so I thought I would name my son after him.

"Mom, why is the ceremony taking so long?"

"Shh, whisper. Inside voice."

"But why is it taking so long?"

"Because, there are a lot of sixteen year olds. Besides, it's barely started."

"I know."

Finally Zoie is called to the stage. She jogs up there, grabs the knife and cuts her hand, letting it drip into the coals, no hesitation.

"That's my girl."

"Can we go now?"

"No, we have to wait until everyone is finished."

"But mom, I'm bored."

"We all are, just sit still. You'll be fine, it won't kill you to sit through this."

Alex huffs and slouches down in his chair. Zoie comes back to Dauntless and sits down with the initiates, turning around and grinning at us. A little while later I hear a snore from her brother. I'm tempted to wake him up, but at least he's not complaining.

Finally the ceremony is over and I wake him up.

"But mom, I was sleeping."

"Okay, I'll leave you here to sleep. I'll come back for you at next year's ceremony."

"Alright, I'm coming."

Being only ten, Alex isn't quite big enough to jump on the train by himself, so I hold onto his hand the whole time, dragging him up. We jump off a little early, going down to the usual entrance to Dauntless. I drop Alex off with Tris, and I climb up to meet Eric on the rooftop, trying not to look down the entire time I'm climbing.

"Nice timing, the initiates are just now getting off."

"Hey, be nice. There's an Amity in the crowd, he's not used to all of this."

"Well he better get used to it."

I give him a look.

"Okay, okay, I'll be nice... ish"

"Good enough."

After we get all of the initiates down to Four, it's time for Eric and I to jump.

"You know, we could just stay up here for a little while, I mean, it's not like we have anywhere to be until dinner time."

"You're just stalling aren't you?"

"Look, I just got up here a while ago, I survived that, now I have to get back down?"

"Yep. I'll go first and help you out when you come down, okay?"

"Alright, fine."

He jumps, and I hear him yell up to me a few seconds later, telling me I'm good to go. I jump, not yelling, and land in the net. Even after all these years, I'm having a hard time letting go of the net, even when I feel Eric's hands on my waist, picking me up and setting me down on the ground.

"See? You're fine, you lived."

I just nod.

After dinner, Four leads the initiates off to their quarters and Eric and I go back to our apartment, getting Alex from Tris on our way back.

This is my family. My baby girl is grown up now, becoming a true member of Dauntless, a real part of something important. I have a husband, and a young son as well. I'm a trainer for the initiates, along with Eric and Four. This is my dream, this is what I've always wanted. This is where I belong.


End file.
